


Overlady

by EarthScorpion



Category: Overlord - Fandom, ゼロの使い魔 | Zero no Tsukaima | The Familiar of Zero
Genre: Derailed From The Stations Of Canon, Feminist Comedy, Humour, Parody, Pastiche, but like all good humour it also tries to have a point, or at least a mess, yes this is fiction with a message
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-05 20:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 68
Words: 417,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4193346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthScorpion/pseuds/EarthScorpion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A new overlady, you say? She's a little short and flat-chested, although her temper is impressively vile. Oh well. Needs must when needs must. Too long have the lands of Halkeginia gone without true Evil. There are fluffy bunnies and happy ponies all over the place, frolicking! It makes me quite sick! No, it doesn't matter if she wants to or not. Because Evil always finds a way."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Dark and Evil Start of Evil Darkness 1-1

It was a dark and stormy night.  
  
Well, no, it wasn’t. It was certainly stormy, for slashing rain whipped across the wind-tossed countryside, and the sky was covered from horizon to horizon in clouds the colour of lead. And it was most definitely dark, save for the moments when the entire world was cast into bleak contrast by calamitous crashes of blinding lightning. But it was still mid afternoon, and somewhere above the thick clouds the sun was high and bright, as marked by the patch of sky which was merely iron-coloured, rather than lead.  
  
Hence, it was a dark and stormy mid-afternoon, which is a phrase with far less poetic cachet and precedence than its nocturnal cousin. Still, two out of three isn’t bad. It’s sixty-six point six recurring percent. It’s a solid pass.  
  
And so all in all, with everything considered, by and large, it was probably a time for Evil deeds.  
  
Not just evil deeds, which can be carried out in pretty much any levels of lighting and climatic conditions. In fact, some of the most evil deeds are done by well-fed men sitting in tastefully lit rooms on comfortable chairs as they fill out paperwork and give orders, with not a flaming brazier nor a throne made out of skulls to be seen. No, these were Evil deeds. The difference is, the person who coined the phrase ‘the banality of evil’ had never encountered real Evil, which always tries its best to be stylish about things, and even when it fails at least fails in interestingly tasteless ways.  
  
Across this decidedly inhospitable landscape of jagged croppings of rock rising above foetid swamps and dark forests, a lone mounted figure stood out. Hunched low over her horse, keeping it at a slow walk, Louise de la Valliere kept her oilskin tightly wrapped around her with one hand and a firm hand on the reins with another. Her horse trembled faintly with tiredness - she was a good enough horsewoman to realise she had already pushed it too hard to go any faster than a walk - and it was skittish from the lightning.  
  
“Come on, girl,” she said, leaning forwards to stroke the mare’s soaked head. “Just a bit further. Just a little bit. I walked you all the way until lunch, and you had oats then, so you can keep going just a bit further, right?”  
  
She needed to get to cover, get out of this rain. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be riding like this in the middle of a spring storm. She shouldn’t be out in the cold and wet, on her own up along the horrible bits of the northern coast, where bandits and orcs and Founder knew what else roamed the wilderness.  
  
But a lot of things shouldn’t have been, but were.

* * *

  
  
In the end, she managed to find a cave in one of the outcroppings of rock. Cold, shivering, she led her horse in out of the wet, and slumped down, shaking. After a few moments, she wearily levered herself to her feet, and pulled her horse blanket out of one of her saddlebags. Slowly, she rubbed her steed down with the still-damp blanket, until it stopped shaking quite so much, and then she fed it with the last of the oats she had with her.  
  
Only then did she see to herself; a small fire set with the dry wood she had - a _proper_ mage wouldn’t have had to muck around with flint - and one of the rather-damp dried-up balls of grain and vegetables thrown into a pot. It wasn’t as if she had a shortage of water; she just had to go and leave the pot under one of the rivulets running by the cave-mouth to fill it.  
  
Louise felt slightly more human as the scent of cooking food filled her nostrils and she had a chance to empty her bladder outside the cave. She huddled close to the fire, stripped down to her chemise as she tried her best to dry her wet clothes. She hadn’t managed to dry yesterday’s set properly, so she couldn’t even change into them.  
  
The increased physical wellbeing, however, only let her sink deeper into melancholy. She was a failure. A complete and utter failure. A useless, wasted, failure who didn’t deserve the name of de la Valliere. Now she no longer felt like she was going to freeze to death - or possibly drown on dry land, so heavily was it raining - she could come to face what she had known for the last four days.  
  
Since the terrible events of the Spring Summoning Ritual.  
  
That day hadn’t started like this. The sun had shone down, from on high, down onto a green and pleasant field in Tristain. The chill of the morning had been still barely present, although rapidly departing, and the faintest hint of dew had been still present on the grass. Her shoes had squeaked, she remembered. It had horribly, loathsomely, terribly been a lovely spring morning, and the clarity of the sky above had declared that it was only going to get more pleasant. There had been birds on the field, tiny sparrows in the sky and a number of large grey cranes in the nearby pond.  
  
Louise wrung out her hair, feeling the cold water against her fingers. Yes, it had been an auspicious day. Clear sunlight for Fire, dew for Water, a breeze for Wind and... uh, the earth for Earth. Everything had been perfect, a guaranteed success for the summoning ritual.  
  
Except for her.  
  
She had got to watch as people summoned frogs, cats, birds, salamanders (damn Kirche and the fact that her breasts even seemed to have the ability to call wild animals), and even a Founder-damned _dragon_. And then when she had stepped up... nothing.  
  
Nothing at all.  
  
Not even a _flea_. No summoning portal, no success. All she’d managed to do was cover herself in soot from head to toe so she was as black as midnight.  
  
What kind of mage did that?  
  
She couldn’t stay at the Academy, that was for sure. Oh, certainly, they were being “kind”. And “sympathetic”. And telling her that “everything was all right”. Yes, sure, everything was certainly just fine. It was all fine and happy and skippy and wonderful and perfect and cheerful. Except for the fact that she was a failure, a zero, a pathetic little girl who couldn’t cast a single spell properly. All she could do was destroy things.  
  
The worst bit had come when Kirche von Zerbst, her long-standing rival, had been “understanding” and come to “comfort her” but really to gloat. Why else would she have said that at least she could still get married? Louise certainly didn’t want to become like... like some commoner woman who had fifteen children, because that was all that they were good for.  
  
It had come as a dream in the night. She wouldn’t stay to be mocked and bullied and shown to be a worthless little failure any more. No, there was no way she could stand that. So she would run away. She still had her entire term’s pocket money. She would pack, run away, and seek her fame and fortune. Her mother had done that too; she had become a hero because of it, stopping plots against the Crown, winning battles, and she did that all in disguise, pretending to be someone else.  
  
That would be the way to prove she was worthwhile. That she was really her mother’s daughter, and not some mistake, that - as sometimes she had nightmares about - her parents' real daughter had died at birth and the midwife had substituted another pink-haired child in her place to avoid being punished. If her mother could do it, so would Louise, or die trying.  
  
And if she died trying, at least she wouldn’t be around to embarrass her family anymore. Wouldn’t have to face the bullying anymore. Wouldn’t be the Zero anymore.  
  
Louise stared into the fire, the light reflected back in her eyes. Only it had all gone wrong. At first she had started off towards Bruxelles, because clearly the capital was where you sought fame and fortune. But then she had realised that that would be where they would look for her, and it wasn’t exactly running away if you ran away to a place perhaps two hours coach-ride from the place you had been. So she had taken a short trip across country to take the road to La Rochelle instead.  
  
But fame and fortune seemed to be rather harder to find than the stories had claimed. And then she had got turned around in the mountains near La Rochelle and the weather had got much, much worse and by that point she had stopping hoping that no one would ever find her and started hoping that someone would find her.  
  
But no, no one had even been looking for the runaway noble girl. Ha! Showed how much any of them cared, for all that they had been trying to be all reassuring. They probably forgot about her as soon as she was out of their sight. Or they’d been _pleased_ to be rid of this inconvenient girl.  
  
The pink-haired girl wrung out her hair again, and shivered, only partly from the cold and wet. She poked her clothes experimentally, but they were still drenched. At least there was water in this cave, and stacks of dry-ish branches near the entrance - probably blown in here by the wind, she thought - and if it came down to it, her magic had always been pretty good at killing wild animals. Well, some kinds of wild animals. Birds, mice, kittens, puppies, sheep... pretty much anything that anyone found cute and could find a reason to blame her for. So at least she could get food if the rain kept on coming.  
  
Louise curled up into a ball by the fire, by her drying clothes, and cried herself to sleep.

* * *

  
The pink-haired girl woke with a start, and realised she was not alone. She didn’t know how she was not alone. She could give no evidence for... was not alone save for her horse, she corrected herself. Because that was still here, and looking decidedly jittery.  
  
From the way the fire had died down to embers, and the fact that outside it was even darker, she roughly guessed that it was probably nighttime. Maybe eight or so hours had passed, by her best estimate, but it was probably still before midnight. And decidedly chilly with the fire died down and only dressed in a chemise.  
  
Picking up her wand, Louise shrugged on her oilskin over the top, after discovering that everything else was still too wet to wear. Then, after a moment’s thought, she put her wand in her back pocket, and picked up a large branch in both hands. There was something very... reassuring about a heavy lump of wood, especially compared to how... much of a failure she was.  
  
“H-hello?” she called out, voice quavering. “Is anyone there?”  
  
The fire went out, as if it was a candle flame snuffed out by a pair of giant clawed fingers. This precise metaphor came to mind to Louise, because at the edge of hearing she heard a scrape which sounded frightfully like the sound of nails on slate. Only louder.  
  
Her horse panicked, treacherously finding reserves of strength which it apparently had not been willing to provide her, and bolted.  
  
“Come back you stupid mare!” Louise yelled after it, watching as it ran off with about half her saddlebags. Something skittered out of the edge of her vision, and she whirled to face it. “Show yourself!”  
  
No response, except for more skittering, again out of the corner of her eye.  
  
“Sh-show yourself!”  
  
“Who dares intrude upon my... dark domain?” a voiced asked. “This tower is... mine!”  
  
Louise’s wand whipped around to face the source of the noise. There... there were two faintly glowing points of light there, she realised. Two... red lights. At about head height. For a child. “I am Louise de la Valliere,” she announced, trying to keep the shake out of her voice.  
  
“Oh. A... de la Valliere. I should feel all so... awed by such company.” Or, she realised, as the two lights rose, a man sitting down. “Welcome to my humble... abode.” In the darkness, as her eyes adjusted to the lack of firelight, she could just about see a figure standing there. Bats chittered, flocking out en mass over her head, and the girl flinched. “Ah, listen to the... children of the night,” the dark figure said, his movements forwards accompanied by a rustle of fabric. “What... wonderful music... they make.”  
  
The constant dramatic pauses in the dialogue were beginning to disturb Louise by this point, because they broke up the flow of conversation no end and really rather annoyed her. “Who are you?”  
  
“Moi? I am... the Dark High Lord Baron Louis de Bois, and this... is my tower,” it said, with another shuffling scrape forwards.  
  
“This is a cave,” the girl said, edging backwards.  
  
“No,” the figure said, a twist of irritation entering its voice, “it is a tower. Really. It’s just a bit damaged at the moment.” It coughed, and its voice returned to the dry rasp it had been using before. “Please won’t you... dine with me?”  
  
“N-no thank you,” Louise said. “And... um, I didn’t know it belonged to you and I’m sorry so...”  
  
“Ah, yesssssssss,” hissed the voice, “the servants are most... disobedient, aren’t they? Most... poor at their... tasks. They should have... greeted you and... shown you to your... quarters. Like the other... guests who have shown up at my... tower over the years. I will need to... punish them for their... disobedience. Punish them... mightily.”  
  
Louise carefully laid the branch she was carrying down. She had to allay its suspicions, because only one kind of creature would be this pointlessly melodramatic and unnecessarily sinister according to her mother’s tales. Slowly, one hand went back to her rear pocket searing for her wand, and she cursed whatever bravado had given her the idea that a large lump of wood was a better weapon than explosions. “I’m quite f-fine, thank you,” she said, as slowly as he could.  
  
“Oh dear, oh dearie dearie... me,” said - no, breathed, ‘said’ was much too human a word for that sinister corpse-like rattle - the figure. “A poor lost little... girl.” It exhaled again, a stinking breath which smelt of rotting corpses, musty tombs and dried blood. “Poor little girl, come... here. Why don’t you share a... drink with me? You smell... delicious. And are only dressed in a... chemise underneath that cloak. Why don’t you... take it... off? You’re dressing like you... want it”  
  
Mindlessly, Louise’s cold fingers scrabbled for her wand. She had to keep this thing talking, stop it doing whatever it was going to do, because things which looked like this and sounded like this and above all smelt like this were not good things to be around. “Dr-drink?” she stammered, half from fear and half from the cold and wet. “Wh-what kind of drink? Like... wine?”  
  
“Wine?” the figure exhaled. “I do not drink... wine.”  
  
Louise’s fingers closed around the shaft of her wand. “Well... uh, what about brandy?”  
  
“I do not drink... brandy.”  
  
“Sherry?”  
  
“I do not drink... sherry.”  
  
“Beer?”  
  
“... I am fond of... beer, yes.”  
  
“R-really?”  
  
The corpse-like figure in its tattered black robe... only that wasn’t a robe was it, that was wings... grinned, revealing elongated canines. “No. Guess again, poor little lost... girl.”  
  
“Well. Um. Um. Um. Wh-what about... Fireball!”  
  
The explosion painted the inside of the cave with soot, ignited the rusted braziers, and sent the vampire reeling. There was the sound of collapsing masonry as part of the room fell in. Louise coughed in the smoke - at least she was dry now - and pointed her wand at the frazzled-looking monster.  
  
“You little _pleb!_ ” the walking corpse yelled, in a rather more normal voice which was not riddled with inauspicious and allegedly sinister pauses. “This was my best suit!” Now she could see it properly in the light of the relit braziers, it was dressed in heavily tattered noble garb which looked to be at least a hundred years out of date.  
  
“Fireball!” she countered. “And,” she coughed, “I am not a plebian, you... Fireball! I can almost certainly. Fireball. Trace my bloodline back... Fireball! Back... back... Fireball! Back further than you!”  
  
Knocked by the relentless series of concussive impacts, the vampire tripped, staggered, and fell backwards. Right back onto one of the newly relit braziers. Which made up for their lack of things like modern mage-lighting or fragrant sandalwood perfumery by having long, sharp spikes around the rim.  
  
The bloodsucker went up like an oil-soaked torch, and screamed until it was but ash  
  
Choking from the smoke, her clothes tattered - but at least dry - and filthy, Louise sank to her knees, and retched. She was exhausted, mentally and physically. She was hungry. She was shaking with adrenaline. Part of the room had fallen in. She was very glad she had not had a full bladder during the incident. Her horse had run off.  
  
Oh, and she was a complete failure at everything in life and should probably have just laid down and let the vampire kill her, because it was not like she had anything to live for. That still hadn’t changed. Although, on the plus side, she had now killed a vampire.  
  
In a way which no one had seen her do.  
  
And so probably didn’t count.  
  
“”You! Girl! That was a display of Evil energy I haven’t seen in a long, long time!” There was a pathetic sounding cough from somewhere far up above. “Care to help poor old pathetic weak Gnarl down from where that nouveau riche trying-far-too-hard vampire locked me up?”  
  
Weakly, Louise looked around. Now the braziers were alike, she could see that what she had thought was a cave was actually what looked like the ruined remnants of a castle, or maybe a tower. This was probably what had once been the hall. There were holes in the floor which she made a note to stay clear from. And there were cages hanging from the ceiling. Some of them had rusted through, but some of them were still occupied. Only one of the occupants was still alive, however.  
  
The creature looked somewhat looked like a demented and malevolent cat, and rather more like a goblin. However, there was a certain... edge about it which most goblins lacked. Perhaps it was the wispy sideburns of white hair. Perhaps it was the goatee. However, it was rather more likely that it was the look in its eyes.  
  
They were cold, hard, and intelligently certain.  
  
“Honestly, give a man a hunger for the blood of the living and a pair of sharp fangs, and he thinks he should be the dark master of the night,” the gnarled goblin - who may possibly have been called Gnarl, if Louise was hearing him right - complained. “Use that hand crank by the throne, and let me down. I’ve been up in this cage for nearly eighty years, because that foolish vampire said I had to be his advisor and I came with the Tower. Pah!” The goblin spat. “I would never serve someone like that, especially someone who pawned the remaining statues to buy himself some overpriced suits. Evil has standards, you know.”  
  
Louise pointed her wand up at the cage, her hand shaking. “Keep back, goblin,” she said, voice quavering. “You saw what I did to the vampire!”  
  
“Goblin?” The goblin sounded positively offended. “Goblin? I am no mere _goblin_. I am a _Minion_ , an altogether superior race of being.”  
  
“I’m pointing a wand at you!” the girl asserted, ignoring the fact that due to the shake in her hands it was only on target perhaps half of the time.  
  
“And it’s a very nice wand,” Gnarl said, “but my old legs and arms are very cramped up here in the cage. And,” a wheedling note entered his voice, “... clearly when you are so powerful a user of dark energies, you have nothing to fear from one tired old Minion. Who knows a few secrets about how to use magic which he might share with a young girl who let him out of his cage.”  
  
That was true, she had to admit. The goblin looked _old_ \- almost as if it was the equivalent age to Headmaster Osmond. Which it might have been, if as it claimed it had been locked up in the cage for eighty years. And rescuing things counted as heroic deeds, and... maybe he was a mage turned into a goblin, because frankly goblins were barely able to talk, while this one was positively verbose. “Very well,” she said, “but one sign of trickery from you and I’ll do the same to you!”  
  
“Oh, I swear on the goodness of my heart and by all that is Holy and Good to not hurt even the slightest hair on your head,” the old goblin said, reassuringly.  
  
Well, that was a serious oath and a reassurance. Consoled by that, Louise made her way to the old crank, and straining, worked at it until eventually the metal cage was lowered down.  
  
“Thank you,” Gnarl said. “Now, just get this cage unlocked. The vampire had the key.”  
  
Searching around through the pile of ash by the brazier found an old iron key, and Louise picked it up in her left hand. Keeping her wand pointed at the old goblin with her right hand, she fumbled at the lock until it turned in the lock.  
  
The old goblin moved in a blur, seizing her hand while his other reached behind him and...  
  
… and everything changed. Louise felt a weight leave her body, a weight which she had been carrying ever since the Springtime Summoning Ritual and not even realised. It was like she had been a compass, and now her needle had been removed; like she was a mule who had cast off their rider and was now running free.  
  
Gnarl flinched back, eyes suddenly going wide. He gasped, a sudden inhalation of liquid pain. “Your dark ladyship,” he breathed. “Oh my, oh, my my my.”  
  
“What?” Louise said. She was beginning to get annoyed, not just because she had a distinct feeling she had just been a fool and the goblin had been about to kill her. More annoyed. The go... Gnarl took another step back, back into the cage, and her irritation grew more.  
  
Silently, the wizened creature raised one hand - his left one. There were runic marks on it, burning a sick, bilious green which made Louise feel slightly nauseated just by looking at it. Then that sensation was gone, and it was... just an old scar. “What does that mean?” she asked.  
  
“It means,” the old goblin said thoughtfully, “something very, very Bad has happened.”  
  
“Really?” Louise asked, concerned.  
  
“Oh yes, it’s gloriously Bad! Just wonderful!”  
  
“Boss!” another voice sounded out from behind her, and she whirled, wand raised at the brown-skinned goblin which came running in. “We hear screaming, and it not you or us! Sound like bloody sucker dead! And then hand hurt!” The creature raised its hand, to show another identical mark branded onto its left hand. “Then Shinky get angry, try take food, and I hit Shinky harder and faster than I normally hit Shinky! Knock out teeth!”  
  
“Indeed,” Gnarl said, rubbing his hands together, possibly out of malevolent intent and possibly to get the circulation flowing again. “Minions!” he continued, raising his voice. “This is the day we have been long waiting for! Not only is that disgusting vampire re-dead...” there were cheers from more brown-skinned goblins, who came flocking behind the first, one of whom was missing all their teeth, “... but we have a new master! Well,” he paused, “we have a new mistress!”  
  
“You sure she not master?” one of the goblins contributed.  
  
“No, because she is female,” Gnarl said. “Therefore, Minionkind can celebrate, because after so many long, long, _long_ years, we are whole again.”  
  
“Um,” said Louise.  
  
“... but she boss of boss, so she master,” the intransigent goblin chirped up.  
  
“Lickit, be quiet, or I will have you put on privy duty for a year rather than just a month.”  
  
“Eyes! Glowing!” contributed another brown-skinned creature. “Like old days.”  
  
“Indeed they are, Chokem, and it does the evil heart of an old Minion like me good to see that lovely orange-yellow burn,” the oldest and most-verbose goblin said. “Even if hers are rather pinker than I remember.”  
  
“Um,” said Louise, raising her hands up to look at them. They... did seem to be illuminated by a light source when she did that.  
  
“Now, mistress,” Gnarl continued. “Oh, woe is us. Due to the actions of various people and mistakes which were made, none of which were by me, your treasury is empty and your Tower is ruined. You, in your wisdom have sealed us in because you collapsed the only entrance. Moreover, despite your vast and terrible reserves of Evil energy and magic, you are nearly completely untrained in spellcraft... you seem to be completely self-taught. And your Evil fashion sense is sadly lacking.”  
  
Gnarl paused for breath.  
  
“And you clearly don’t know how to fight, or even to command your Minions. And you’re about as scary as an angry rabbit. And Evil has not ruled over these lands in a long, long time, so you almost certainly don’t know how to be a proper supreme ruler. And you don’t control any lands. And all four of the minion hives are missing, so you cannot even spawn new loyal servants to replace the inevitable losses we suffer in the process carrying out your dreams of dark conquest.”  
  
The Minion shrugged.  
  
“But, well, you are our mistress, and we are your loyal Minions, so we’ll just have to muddle along until you are properly trained up.”  
  
He paused again.  
  
“Oh, and there are several hundred skeletons and zombies in the underlayers which you will need to clear out before they burst out to feed on the living. Like us. The filthy vampire filled up the place with all the people he killed over the years, you see, so there are rather a lot of them.”

 

* * *

 

_The Dark and Evil Sinister Deeds of the Malevolent Supreme Lady of Darkness and Evil under whose Malignant Grasp all of Halkeginia was Darkly and Evilly Crushed by Darkness and Evil_

_or,_

_**Overlady** _

 

* * *

  
  
“What in God’s name is going on!” Louise screamed at the expectant goblinoid faces, and felt slightly better for having said that.


	2. The Dark and Evil Start of Evil Darkness 1-2

_"Evil always wins, because Good is dumb. And when you look at your average Brown, that's saying something!"_

_-_ Gnarl

* * *

 

Louise shifted under the warmth of her blanket, curling her toes back under the rolled-in edges. In the place half-way between sleep and wakefulness she dozed. Slowly she climbed back into full awareness, though it was only with reluctance. She stuck her head back under the blankets, trying to cling onto sleep as long as possible.  
  
She had been having such... such a strange dream. Very, very peculiar. She had been... some kind of super-agent for Princess Henrietta, going on secret missions, fighting Albionese traitors and golems and she had married Viscount Wardes and...  
  
“Wake up, mistress-in-training! Rise and shine! Birds are singing, flowers are growing and the sun is shining! Pah! It makes me quite sick! Your Evil training has to continue so we can stamp out such things!”  
  
… no, she was back in her perfectly normal and mundane world where she was apparently the ruler of a ruined smelly tower packed with undead, ‘advised’ by an uppity goblin and ‘helped’ by other goblins who were less uppity, but rather more stupid. And her eyes had a tendency to glow yellow. Well, pink-ish yellow. The problem was the glowing, not the precise colour.  
  
She wondered exactly why she had ended up with this, and why she didn’t just leave.  
  
Wait, she knew the answer to that. The entrance was still blocked by rocks. And even if it was open, she _couldn’t_ go back. She had even left a note saying that she was going to seek her fame and fortune. If she came crawling back after a week, she would be... would be a _double-failure._ She could handle being lectured to by a goblin about ‘evil’ if she could learn magic properly here. If she really could master her power here, she could put up with pretty much anything. Once she had done that, she could just quit.  
  
And so what if she had apparently a ruined towerful of goblins as familiars? She would just have to take one back, and... goblins were magical creatures too, right? Which meant that they were just as impressive to have summoned as a dragon! Which meant that everyone should be as wowed by her summoning as by Tabitha’s, and anyone who didn’t agree was being petty and biased because they had only summoned –to pluck an example out of thin air – a stupid frog, rather than an awe-inspiring magical creature which just happened to be a goblin.  
  
She was rather proud of that chain of logic.  
  
It wasn’t like “evil” was anything more than the inherent vice and wickedness in the hearts of mankind, anyway. It was a negation of virtue, a moral weakness, and certainly not a positive force in its own right.  
  
“What if master not want to get up?”  
  
“Honestly, Licket, are you so very stupid that you cannot understand that she is the dark mistress, not the master? Others have grasped it.” Gnarl paused. “And if she will not get up, we might have to rub some acid in her eyes to freshen her up.”  
  
“I’mawakeandready!” Louise yelled, almost levitating upright in her haste.  
  
The two minions stared up at her, from the rather dank room which she was using as her sleeping quarters. There had been no way in all that was holy and sacred that she would be using the place where the vampire had been sleeping. Just the scent of rot and blood had been enough to persuade her that she wasn’t even going to go in there until it had been cleaned.  
  
Preferably using fire. And lots of it.  
  
“Well done, mistress,” Gnarl said. “Now, come on. We have many Evil deeds to learn to do, and only much time to do them in.

* * *

 

It had been several days since she had entered this sunless place – three if she was to believe Gnarl, and her body clock agreed. She was wearing a rather dirty black dress which had been obtained for her from... somewhere in the mess, and had eventually by the medium of pointing her wand at any goblin that came near her managed to change without their ‘aid’. It was a terrible fit, because it had apparently been designed for someone taller, wider in the hips, bustier and generally... generally more shaped like Kirche von Zerbst. As a result, it was belted in at both the waist and the chest and she had just about managed with her limited needlework skills to produce a hem a good five centimetres thick.  
  
Her next project was going to be create straps for this strapless dress, so she wouldn’t have to wear a blouse underneath so it covered... well, anything at all.  
  
Apparently she had a crown-helmet-tiara thing somewhere down in the underlayers, near some kind of giant stone heart or something. That was as much as she could recall for the moment from the extensive talks from Gnarl this early in the morning.  
  
Ever since the first morning, he had been tutoring her. Or, rather, in practice, he had been asking her questions to establish what she knew and the state of the world as a whole. It was all blending together in her mind, not helped by the fact that the only thing to drink down here was slightly stagnant tasting water and the suspiciously strong beer that the minions seemed to brew from mushrooms and whatever else they could get their hands on. Now at least she was doing something new. Sat on her throne – what a joke; it was an uncomfortable broken stone slab and she was sitting on her horse blanket – she watched as Gnarl paced back and forth in front of her. There were more of the goblin things with him, including...  
  
“Louise the Vampire Slayer!”  
  
... the jester. Oh yes, the jester. A _pathetic_ little creature wearing a jester’s hat from centuries ago and shaking an _obnoxious_ stick with bells on it. And some of the things it said... she breathed heavily, trying to ignore its clanking. When Gnarl started talking again, it was a reassurance, because at least he was something to listen to.  
  
“Your Evilness! I have splendid news. The Minions have reclaimed the library! Well, mostly. There are some small pockets of resistance... evil hands, giant bats, talking skulls who think that they are funny, but I’m sure the Minions will have fun crushing them.” Gnarl cleared his throat. “And...”  
  
“We find weapon in treasure rack!” announced one of the brown-skinned creatures. “Find two weapons! For you, mistress!”  
  
“That is excellent news, Grinkle,” Gnarl said, rubbing his hands together. “It is wonderful to hear that at least something escaped that disgusting vampire’s attention. The library might not have been where the most powerful treasures were kept, but some of the more interesting ones were there. Back when we had a research staff, at least.  
  
“And, your evilness, it would simply not do to have you walking around without a sign of your consummate power until we can push those stinking undead back away from the Tower Heart and recover your Gauntlet. Grinkle. Go finish killing everything in the library!” Several Minions scurried off with that order.  
  
“Gauntlet,” Louise echoed, shifting uncomfortable on her hard and cold seat. There had been so many words thrown at her over the past few days, many of which Gnarl pronounced as if they were capitalised, that she was rather losing track of them. “That was...ah, the thing. The thing that did the thing with...” she trailed off, “... with the stuff.”  
  
The old Minion stroked his goatee. “Indeed, mistress, and eloquently put. It is what absorbs magic and lifeforce from the corpses of your defeated foes, allows you to communicate simply and easily with the heart of your tower without the use of difficult and draining communications spells, and also provides many other useful functions.”  
  
Oh yes. That thing. It had sounded useful. Personally, Louise was just going to put up with this until she had mastered whatever magic she could learn here, but that did sound very useful.  
  
“She who Looks Disgustingly Adorable in a Chemise!”  
  
Louise stared up at the filthy ceiling and counted to ten. She wasn’t going to have a tantrum in front of these goblins. She wasn’t. Even when goaded by a stinking jester. It would be embarrassing. It would also be dangerous, because the exit was still sealed off and she couldn’t run away if they decided they didn’t want to follow her any more.  
  
“The Zero!”  
  
The pink-haired girl exploded into motion, leaping up with her teeth clenched. She landed on one foot, bringing the other around in an arc which would have probably have got her scolded by her etiquette tutor for being unfeminine. Well, unfeminine it may have been, but it was undeniably effective, and connected directly with the creature’s face with a smooth follow-through.  
  
The jester went flying back with a clank and a rattle, bounced three times, and fell with a scream through one of the holes in the floor.  
  
Louise smirked in triumph, and then hopped around in agony as the pain kicked in. She had only been wearing her stockings, and that bl- ... that dratted creature had a hard skull.  
  
“And that, mistress,” Gnarl said, coming up behind her, “is why almost all figures of your evil stature wear armoured boots of some kind. That was a positively spiteful kick, though. It makes even a dark heart like mine swoon.” He shuffled up to the mouth of the pit, and poked his head down. “I think this hole leads down to the place where that filth vampire threw freshly drained corpses down. Urgh. So unhygienic. And so wasteful.”  
  
From the depths, there was a clanking which sounded remarkably like a heavy stick with a rattle on the end being smashed into the skull of some undead horror.  
  
“And it sounds like we’ll have a day or so of peace and quiet,” Gnarl added, cheerfully, “and he might clear out a few ghoulies down there. You might want to be keeping this hole around, mistress, even when we repair the rest of the Tower. And I do believe the minions want us to come to the library.

* * *

  
The smell of wet paper is a terrible thing, when it has been left to moulder and rot. Doubly so is this true in a library, for the scent that leaks out into the air is more than just mere rotting wood pulp. It is the decay of knowledge, the rotting of thought, and the all-consuming entropy of pancryptography.  
  
Louise sniffed. Wait, no. That was rotting parchment wafting out of the grand doorway marked _LIBRVM_. And rotting vellum. And something musty. And blood, of course. Disgusting vampires.  
  
But metaphorically at least, it smelt of decaying knowledge.  
  
She had descended down a broken and worn staircase, trying her very best to move in her dress, down a level and then along a long corridor. With a hint of concern she had noted the littered bones and broken weapons which were scattered along the place. Her concern was... well, alleviated was too light a word, and also not technically accurate, but it was at least shifted when she had seen the state of her honour guard of minions. Several of them were now wielding bones or rusted swords.  
  
One of them came scurrying up, out through the doorway. “Treasure! For you!” it announced proudly, presenting her with a small handful of... she squinted at the coins... they seemed to be a mix of tarnished sous and deniers. From the crest on the sous, they were around two hundred years old.  
  
Which admittedly wasn’t so bad; there was more silver in an old sou than there was in a modern one. What was worse was that fact that she had no pockets on her at the moment, not even a purse.  
  
She coughed, and then coughed again in the stench. “Um, Gnarl,” she managed, once she had gasped for air. “Do... uh, I have somewhere to keep these or... something?”  
  
“Oh yes, yes,” Gnarl said. The old goblin was leading the way, the glowing crystal hanging from the pole on his back providing a much cleaner light than the burning torch she had in her hand. “At the moment, your evilness, it has several chained up feral vampires in it, collared and leashed to attack anyone who can’t control them.”  
  
“Oh,” said Louise.  
  
“No, it is of no account,” Gnarl said, flapping a hand. “We stopped feeding them, so in a few more days they will have starved themselves into dormancy and then we can dispose of them if you order, mistress. And when we recover your gauntlet, its magic will be able to absorb such moneys and transfer it immediately to the treasury. It is a great tool for Evil, because it makes plundering, pillaging, piracy, pocketing and other profitable professional practices much more convenient. I mean, how many Overlords are forced to wander around with large purses? None of the _proper_ ones, at least. It is a clear sign of an inferior dark lord or lady that they carry money on them.”  
  
He cleared his throat. “That is the other reason I anticipated your orders and put the very highest priority on getting the library cleared. Not only did I think there might be treasures in it, but that is where many of the magical texts were."  
  
“That’s very w-well,” Louise said, “but what do I do with the coins now?”  
  
Gnarl paused, and scratched his head. “Puzzling,” he remarked. “Aha! Maggat!”  
  
A goblin, slightly larger than most of the others stepped forwards, saluting sloppily. He – wait, did these things even have a gender? – was carrying a rusty sword quite casually in one hand. However, that was not his most prominent feature, because he appeared to have forced his head through a skeleton’s ribcage to create some kind of crude bony armour. This general morbid theme was only supported by the fact that two human skulls were serving as pauldrons. “Boss?” it asked.  
  
“Maggat! You are now promoted to the dark mistress’ official purse!” Gnarl shot a glance at Louise. “It is acceptable for you to have other people carry your money for you. And Maggat is smarter than your average minion. He can count up to thirty-four.”  
  
“Fingers, toes, an’ I gots four skeleton hands on belt for large numbers,” the bone-armoured minion admitted bashfully.  
  
“A veritable scholar,” Gnarl agreed. “And he’s strong too, so can carry the large sums which you will hopefully acquire in the short period before we reclaim the treasury.”  
  
“Um,” Louise said, quite aware that the elderly goblin seemed to be rather overestimating her capacities in that field. “Here you go,” she said, for lack of anything else to say, handing the coins to her new official pursegoblin. “But... Gnarl. You said the minions had found weapons in the library, but... I have my wand. And shouldn’t the magical books in the library be more important?”  
  
Gnarl wrinkled his nose at the thin piece of wood. “My lady, you are an _Overlady_. You are expected to have a weapon which can be used to hurt people even when you might not have even one smidgeon of magic to hand. One can never be careful, after all. And I don’t think that thing would work if you tried to stab some armoured intruding knight through the eye. Even if you got it through that tiny armoured slit, it wouldn’t be reliable enough.” He started forwards again. “Oh, do not worry, my lady. There certainly used to be a vast number of books there. Evil has a fine history of sorceresses and such like; Overladies are typically more magically puissant than Overlords.”  
  
Louise did like the sound of the word ‘puissant’, she had to admit. What she did not like was the sight of the library.  
  
It was not as bad as she had imagined.  
  
It was worse.  
  
The room had been a many-ringed hollow several storeys high; indeed, with the dim light of her lantern and Gnarl’s crystal, she could not see how far it descended. The edge was a long, lazy slow spiral, which looped down and down. She could just about see broken bridges criss-crossing the centre, and further rooms leading off from the edge of the spiral. But looking at the book cases, they were a mess. The ones which were not bare were scattered with falling-apart or burned books. This place, this place which was larger than the one back at the Academy, this place which was now _hers_ was a complete and utter mess.  
  
Gnarl must have heard her faint moan, because he said, “You killed that disgusting vampire too quickly, my lady. One of the former Overlords spent a very long building up his collection, and...” he realised he was talking to thin air, as Louise was over at the nearest bookcase, running her hands over the ruined spines and making more distressed noises. “We used to have a properly sinister ghost to care for the collection, but...” he shook his head, “... the wardings are all fried, so I can only think that some necromancer must have released it. You may well need to find yourself a new chief librarian if you want to rebuild the collection to its former standards.”  
  
“Where are the magic books?” Louise ordered in a calm and commanding voice which merely happened to coincidentally sound precisely like an incoherent shriek. “Where are they? Are they safe?”  
  
Behind her back as she ran off followed by her pursegoblin, Gnarl raised his eyebrows at one of the minions. The creature winced and raised its hands, palms facing forwards, fingers curled in, and made the universal motion of ‘don’t even ask’. Gnarl rolled his eyes, and sighed. “Grinkle,” he said, “where are the weapons you found?”  
  
The minion, now wearing a human skull as a hat, shrugged. “She go running in that direction,” it said. “She very fast running. We not kill everything in there yet.”  
  
Gnarl sighed again.  
  
From the distance, there was a trio of thunderous detonations, a short pause, and then two more. That was shortly followed by the sound of minionly cheering.  
  
“Well,” began Gnarl. “At least...”  
  
Two more detonations sounded out, along with more cheering.  
  
“Well, she...”  
  
A snap of three thuds.  
  
“She...” Gnarl paused and waited, counting to himself.  
  
One final, louder one.  
  
“... , fourteen, fifteen. At least she’s picking up the important principles of her new role. A good leader is willing to lead from the front, inspiring by example and acts of extreme and pitiless brutality. And that there are very few problems that cannot be solved by application of sufficient force, apart from unsteady roof supports.”  
  
There was a crash, and a faint clanging noise, followed by another explosion.  
  
“Grinkle,” Gnarl said firmly. “What were the weapons you found? Were, by any chance the Vorpal Lance, the Staff of Destruction or the Lash of Ceaseless Malevolence among them?”  
  
The skull-wearing minion shook its head. “Nuh uh. All gone.” It cleared its throat. “I make list to help report. One. Giant Smashy Hammer of Grabthar the Smashy. I not think it very likely she lift it, because it giant and made of gold and also glow red hot when Evil creature try to pick it up. It burn! Very hot!”  
  
“Ah yes,” Gnarl said, a hint of nostalgia in his voice. “We had to use thirty Reds to move that in, back in the day.”  
  
“Item two! Staff.”  
  
There was another explosion, and a muffled, “Put down that book you blasted skeleton! Get him! Don’t let him get away!”  
  
“Oh, she is even learning the voice,” Gnarl said approvingly. “It does wonderful things to hear a good old fashioned ‘don’t let him get away’ used as if it’s really meant.” He paused, lost in thought for a moment. “Grinkle, which staff was it?” he added.  
  
The minion shrugged. “Iron and black,” it reported. “No fancy thingies on it. Probably not get sold because it not shiny.”  
  
Gnarl stroked his goatee. “Interesting,” he said, slowly. “Very, very interesting.” He hobbled forwards, to meet the soot-covered Louise, who had a black-bound book under one arm, and was leaning heavily on her newly found staff. Her eyes were burning an uncanny pink-tinged yellow. There was a small horde of similarly dirty minions behind her, but their gleaming eyes, burning green runes, wide grins and of course the fact that they were rather shorter made her easy to tell apart.  
  
“I stopped... I stopped... skeleton was going to take this book,” Louise managed. “Felt the magic from it. Also it was in good condition unlike everything else. Probably earth magic in the bindings.” She glanced down at it groggily down at the book. “It wasn’t black then,” she added. “Soot. Staff was there. Useful for beatings.”  
  
“Explosion bigger-er. Bigger-er-er-er with staff,” reported her pursegoblin. “Also, flying skully go smashy when she hit it. She hit it at Krikit, and he hit it with club, and it go flying and smash into wall. It funfun.”  
  
“She good mistress!” Grinkle said, approvingly, turning to face Gnarl. “Big booms. Lots of them, too.”  
  
“Indeed,” Gnarl said thoughtfully. “Although I feel we should perhaps accompany the Overlady back to her boudoir. I feel we will not be able to get as far as I would have hoped today, but then again, she appears to have acquired a tome. I will have to begin her tutoring in the Black Arts of Magic, to go with her tutoring in the Black Arts of Minion Management, the Crimson Arts of Combat, and the Blackest Art of Bureaucracy.” He turned on his heel, and headed back towards the exit


	3. The Dark and Evil Start of Evil Darkness 1-3

_"Who knows what Evil lurks in the hearts of mankind? Well, me. Most of the time it isn't that impressive compared to a brand new Minion, let alone one who's had time to get up to speed and pick up a few shinies."_

_- Gnarl_

* * *

 

Louise closed the book with a snap, and repressed the urge to giggle. It really was that simple. It had taken her almost two days to work her way through the highly technical text, but; ah! The understanding! The glorious understanding!

Carefully, she placed the tome back on the table before her – opening it again, because she realised that it probably made sense for her to be able to read the book when trying things out. Again, she ran her eyes over the main text describing the magic itself, and tried not to giggle. The main problem had been understanding the theory, which seemed to work at a somewhat deeper level than the magical texts back at the Academy. And she had needed to yell at her minions until they found her a book which allowed her to translate the runes the spell itself was written in into a modern alphabet, but they had managed to do that overnight.

She wasn't quite sure why they had written only the spell in the runic symbols, but it did make it easier to find when she lost her place in the text.

The girl took a deep breath, trying to restrain her elation. Louise gripped tightly around her staff of black iron with her right hand, its solidity reassuring in her grasp. Holding her other hand out in the same claw-like gesture that the book's picture marked, she mouthed the incantation to herself, running over the pronunciation. It was longer and more complicated than a normal spell; not something she would want to cast in an emergency.

Entirely deliberately, Louise de la Vallière cast the spell. The air around her claw gesture began to waver and steam, heat-hazes flowing off it like water. And as she pronounced the last syllable, an apple-sized ball of pink flame flared to life, throwing off thick clouds of off-white smoke. It hovered between her fingers.

The girl began to giggle, and then laugh, until tears ran from her eyes. She had done it! She really, really had done it! It was real magic! Of the kind she could even use to pretend to be a fire mage! Her grandfather had been one, after all! She had done it!

Entranced by her own magic she waggled her digits; wide eyed, the girl watched how the shape of the ball flexed and twisted as she moved her hand. She could feel the heat radiating off it – she certainly didn't want to get her face too close – but her fingers felt no more than slightly warm. The book had said that the flows of 'darkest magics devouring the living fire of the world and taking on some of its nature' (which was frankly rubbish) protected the hand of the user, but this felt uncanny.

Could... could she shape the ball? More than just into the sort-of-sausage-shape it ended up as if she squeezed her fingers together? Make something from it? Maybe... an arrow? Or maybe a sword or whip or some other kind of weapon? Any further pondering, however, was interrupted by the growing desire to sneeze as the smoke from the ball of pink fire made her cough and splutter.

Survival instincts told her that scratching her nose while holding a ball of fire would be a very bad idea. But what if she... Louise coughed, breathing onto it, and the ball of fire rushed out like fire dragon's breath. It washed over one of the half-rotten tables and left it only ashes. Panicked, the girl squeaked and dropped her staff, and the fire went out.

Well, the fire in her hand went out. The fire in the room continued to burn, albeit no-longer pink, and added its own smoke to the thick white fumes of the magic.

"... um," Louise managed, in shock.

Surprisingly, the fire did not respect her astonishment, but instead continued to burn. Hastily, the girl snatched up the book of magic and tried to back away from the fire.

"... help!" she called out, after running over what she could actually do to stop a fire. Neither miscast explosions nor more fire would help put it out, which meant that she would have to risk calling on the minions. "Fire!"

The clatter of bare feet against stone announced the arrival of a small army of goblins. Who proceeded to 'help' in a very 'helpful' manner.

"Oooh!"

"Ahh!"

"No, no, fire bad!" Louise shrieked, her vocabulary momentarily degenerating to Minion-like levels. She tried to take a calming breath, only to remember that smoke was not conducive to such things. "Extinguish it! Don't just gawk at it! Go... throw some water on it or something." She whirled, as a sixth sense warned her. "Don't you dare!" Louise screamed at a pre-emptively somewhat-scorched goblin carrying a burning torch. "Put the fire _out_!"

The beast looked confused. "But I trying to fight fire with fire," it said.

Louise merely let out an incoherent yell, and apparently one glance at her glowing eyes was enough to convince the creatures that their mistress was not kidding. Well, that or whatever self-preservation they had was enough to tell them that if they did not put them out, they courted the risk that their mistress would set them on fire.

Eventually, with much stamping, moderate amounts of 'fire being hit with weapons', and two minions set ablaze from trying to punch it, the accidental bonfire was extinguished. Louise was not there to see that, however, because she was outside out of the smoke, being reprimanded by Gnarl.

Oh, certainly, the elderly goblin would not have called it that. It was mere advice, good guidance for an Overlady who was perhaps lacking in practical experience so that she might avoid well-trodden paths which might lead to her having her head cut off by a wandering Hero.

"My lady," Gnarl said, tapping his stick against the ground. "Please remember; maniacal laughter is always good, but not when holding exhalable fire."

Louise blushed, and shuffled her feet, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl. "I coughed, not laughed," she muttered.

It was, nonetheless, most certainly a reprimand. She was feeling a little resentful for the fire and this... this silliness ruining her memories of the first proper spell she had managed. Actually, the slightly worrying thing was how much _sense_ the spells in the book all made. It was like she was wearing comfortable shoes for the first time in her life, and got to see how everyone else managed to run. It felt... strange, scary, and wonderful.

Of course, she actually had comfortable shoes on right now. That was probably where the metaphor had come from. The minions had found a closet full of women's clothing, and even though most of it had likely come from peasants, there had been some from noblewomen. One of them had feet the same size as her.

Louise realised that she should probably be paying attention to Gnarl rather than thinking about how good it was to have shoes which fit her, and turned her attention back on the goblin.

"... and my lady, although I must say this was not entirely successful, at least you are getting the grasp of minion control. Shouting and firm orders, that's the way to do it. Minions respond well to cruelty, brute displays of violence, and being told to do what they wanted to do anyway. If you don't want to do one of those three, then you need to do more of the other two. Everything will be much easier when you have your gauntlet, of course, but I am starting to fear that you may need to lead a small horde down there before you can get it."

"Or I could go out and hire some mercenaries who know how to put out fires without setting themselves ablaze," she said, squaring her jaw. "If I'm meant to be... to be an Overlady, I need better servants than... than clowns!"

"Clowns?" Gnarl sounded genuinely shocked. "Minions are the best... well, minions you can get."

"Could have fooled me."

"Your Evilness," Gnarl said, crocking his finger at her, "you seem to be under some misapprehensions. Come with me to the throne room, while I set you straight. I see I have left this off too long."

* * *

Her 'throne room' was at least starting to look a little bit cleaner, after she told the goblins to scrub the floors and throw the rubbish in the corners down the holes in the floor. It still was not a pretty place – nor a place where one could walk without falling down several storeys into a pit filled with the hungry dead, but at least it was something.

Louise settled down on the cushions on her throne, staff resting against the side, and waited for whatever boring lecture Gnarl was about to give.

"Long ago," Gnarl began, "the first and mightiest of the Overlords was having a jolly Evil time. He was sweeping across Halkeginia, pillaging and plundering, conquering and corrupting, killing pathetic elves and stupid dwarves with glee, having unicorn barbeques and clubbing baby seals on the north coast to death."

Louise frowned. "No, that's not right. I know this," she said, taking refuge in pettiness. The things Gnarl was talking about were rather too much to think of - though, of course, it just went to show that for all his talk of 'Evil', he was fundamentally wrong. Killing elves wasn't an evil act. Although... well, killing people just because they were short probably was. "Cattleya wanted one and then it turned out the climate was too warm for them and Mother refused to build her an ice house as an extension to her wing of the house. Seals don't live on the north coast. "

"Not any more, my lady," Gnarl said, sounding self-satisfied. "Seals aren't to be trusted, you know. They can see into your soul. But, you see, in his imperial darkness he was running into a teeny tiny problem. You see, his hordes of men, armoured in black iron and riding very bad tempered ponies took rather a lot of casualties when carrying out perfectly normal raids, and humans take so long to make new humans. Sometimes as long as two decades! That was a problem, because when you were trying to do perfectly reasonable things like burning down all the stupid smelly forests of the elves filled with magical lifeforms irrationally hating Evil, and storming the heavily armoured and fortified fortresses of the dwarves and burning them to the ground and taking all their shiny gold, they tended to object in ways that killed lots of his dark forces. So he, in his Evil genius, started looking for easier ways to acquire legions of darkness

"Oh, he tried so many things to make a superior race of fighting construct. He tried drugging captured elves with everything he could think of. The first lot of drugs had those pathetic long-eared whiners talking about 'bad trips' and the like. Pyah!" Gnarl spat down one of the holes in the floor. "Even when he tried moving to stronger things - including one delightfully Evil potion made from minotaur testes - to make the elves man-up, all he managed to make were orcs. And orcs might be big and muscled, but they are very, very, very stupid. And always so obsessed with getting stronger. They were fine shock-troopers, but were not what he was looking for.

"Other experiments followed. Fireflies were raw Evil woven into fire life force, but they proved too hot to handle. He couldn't work how to get the digestive tract to work in centaurs and almost all of them starved to death. I'm not even sure he knew what he was doing when he decided to cut people in half and glue them to half a fish; neither mermen or menmer were good ideas for someone who was trying to conquer the land. He did spent some time playing around with necromancy, but... my lady, you saw how pathetic a skeleton is compared to a Minion. And the less said about his failed attempts as a contract lawyer and demonologist, the better."

Louise shifted slightly in her seat, noticing the avid minions creeping in around Gnarl. They seemed to be listening raptly. Every little face was turned towards the older goblin.

"And so, in the end, he made the very first Minion. And once he had made the first, then he created the minion hives to produce the new-made master-race en masse."

Louise smiled faintly, at the rather ridiculous notion. It was more than a little pretentious, and considerably more stupid.

"Laughing would not be a good idea," Gnarl said, seriously. "My lady, we are the best friends you will ever have, your most loyal servants, and... fools put their trust in Heroes. The genius, the sheer Evil of the first Overlord was to realise that it does not matter that a Hero might be able to kill a hundred Minions who attack them when two hundred charge. Perhaps you did not pay attention truly yesterday when I explained what a minion hive does. Or perhaps you merely did not think it through properly."

The girl said nothing, because she vaguely remembered him saying something about some kind of place where the goblins really wanted to live, but did not want to show any ignorance. She was starting to get more than a little bit annoyed at Gnarl's attitude, as if she was a simple child who knew nothing. She would have been rather more annoyed if... uh, she didn't actually need the simple explanations most of the time.

But when she had learned enough to make him unnecessary, then she could get out of here and take her new knowledge with her.

"A minion hive is the pinnacle of Evil soul-alchemy," Gnarl explained. "Taking the life-force of your slain foes and other stinking creatures like sheep and ponies, it weaves it together with raw Evil to birth a new Minion. There are four hives in all; one for each of the common kinds of Minion. And let me tell you this; with but _one_ of them and a sufficient source of lifeforce of the appropriate kind, you could rule all of Tristain. The Brown one would be the best, because Browns are made from a mix of elemental energies and do not require the water-specialty of the Blues, the fire of the Reds, or the blend of earth and water – with traces of air – of the Greens. But make no mistake. All a minion hive requires is lifeforce. From there, you could produce hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of new Minions."

Maggat raised his hand. "Miss Reds," he contributed. "Got easy hot meals around them."

"Most of the Minions left at the tower are Browns, yes," Gnarl said, gravely. "The Greens quit and wondered off into the woods, the Reds... well, vampires have never been too fond of fire, and the Blues turned out to be rather tasty. There are a few, here and there, but... no great number."

"Also, Blues so useful," Maggat added. "If die, they bring you back. Someone once ask me if Minion bought back is same Minion who die, or new one who has all same memories. I say I think I is me, except when I gets very drunk and forgets who I is."

Gnarl clutched his hands around his stick. "Oh, it would be so nice to have some little cheerful faces around the place, ready to loot and plunder and kill," he said, sentimentally. "We're all very old by Minion standards, especially me. And much as it shames me to admit it, most of the Minions here come from goblin stock."

Louise blinked. "Wait," she said, raising one hand carefully. Her mind was a-whirl, and all the joy and happiness of her first proper spell seemed to have leaked out of her, as Gnarl went on and on about... about all the death which would be required to feed these Minion-making machines. She didn't want to do that. Not one bit. "Goblin stock? I thought... well, you are goblins, right?"

There was a clatter of splatters, as various Minions around the room spat on the ground.

"Nope!"

"Urgh!"

"Not anymore!"

"... I never ever ever ever be that kind of thing! Me from proper hive!"

Gnarl raised one hand and the room feel quiet. "It's not her fault; it's been so long since there was a proper Overlord around with a hive that it's no wonder she only thinks we're," he made a disgusted noise, "goblins. No, your ladyship, we are _not_ goblins. Goblins are inferior, cut-price, degenerated, filthy, stinking terrible, useless, base pathetic creatures."

He paused. "No offense to those of you who came from goblin stock, of course," he added, "but it is true. A proper Minion is a creature of raw and base Evil and stolen lifeforce, spawned from the terrible and mighty power of a minion hive, blended with the temperament and personality of the most vicious, treacherous, and sneaky creature mankind knows." He snorted. "A goblin is no more than a little bit Evil, and they're much weaker. Could five goblins lift that fallen bit of ceiling over there?"

There was a clatter as four minions leapt to obey the implied suggestion, their small-yet-wiry bodies straining as they lifted a lump of rock larger than all four of them combined.

"Um," said Louise.

"And that is why calling a proper and true Minion a 'goblin' is an insult!" Gnarl insisted. "Oh, you can recruit goblins, and you will have to – once you have the tower heart controlled, you can convert goblins into Minions, but they can never be quite as good as a _true_ Minion."

"Oh." The girl paused. "And... so," she trailed off, thinking hard, "so... goblins are wild Minions, without someone to follow?"

"Crudely true," Gnarl said, dismissively. "There is also the matter of birth; the crude alchemies they use to continue their race are poor compared to a proper minion hive, and collecting bodies together to let them rot and grow new goblins in is a poor substitute for proper refined life force. Still, needs must. Even when some of them have re-developed," the minion gagged, "romance for the purposes of reproduction."

Louise's mouth flapped open, and then closed again. She opened it. She closed it. "Wait," she said, eventually. "Eleanore was _right?_ My annoying smug self-righteous violent older sister who gets in duels all the time with other researchers over theories was _right_ about where goblins came from? From putting their flesh in rotting meat and that kind of thing?"

Gnarl narrowed his eyes. "A human worked that out?" he muttered. "Curses. What is her background? Could she be a rival Overlady?"

The girl blinked. "I don't think so," she said, eventually. "Eleanore is... well, um. She's sort of built like me and Mother, but blonde, and... um. Er, she's a magical researcher at the University of Amstelredamme. I think she's... um, not likely to do that... this kind of thing. It would get in the way of her research." Louise narrowed her eyes. "Though of course, um, she's much more likely to be evil than my other sister," she added darkly. "Oh, I wouldn't be surprised of Eleanore would be evil, given half... no, a third of a chance. Compared to her, Cattleya is s-sickly, pale, and she can't even leave the house because she's always ill and has fainting spells. And... and she's the kindness, gentlest person I have ever known! I wish I was more like her," she added, forlornly.

Gnarl's beady eyes scrutinised her, and the girl could not help but feel a little guilty and even more offended by her arrogant 'chief advisor'. How dare he look so knowing! How dare he stare at her like he thought that she didn't actually want to be ill and too prone to weakness and all the things Cattleya suffered from; that she just wanted her appearance! She wasn't that shallow! Not one bit. She really did want to be nice like her. She... just had a temper and didn't do well with people. That was it.

"And of course, as you have reminded me several times, you are Lousie de la Vallière. The third daughter of a duke," Gnarl said, stroking his goatee. "Yes, that's a good, traditional Evil background. The youngest child. The one who everyone always looks down on. The one who has everything to prove. You have a Respectable one, a Kind one, and you... the Evil one.

"And a de la Vallière, yes," the creature added approvingly. "Oh, I know your family of old. A nicely traditional one. Louis de la Vallière was someone I would have liked to have met; a true military genius. All those impaling and executions of people who got in his way. Properly knowing how to strike fear into the hearts of your foes, that's what that is. And your name is so much like his; I have great hopes for you, my lady. I had heard rumours that the current duke had gone soft, but then again that was a vampire ranting when I was locked in a cage, so it was not the most reliable information"

She preened a little at the praise of herself, even as her conscience told her that what he was saying was not a good thing. And that the little gobli... Minion was probably trying to make her easier to persuade with all that praise. "And, well, my mother is the duchess, Karin, and she used to be a soldier and a champion and part of the Manticore Knights..."

There were gasps all around, and even Gnarl flinched. "Not... not Karin of the Heavy Wind!" the elderly goblin managed.

"Wait," she protested, her voice rising. "You said you had been locked up in that cage for decades! How in Brimir's name do you know about my mother!"

"Oh, everyone knows about Karin of the Heavy Wind, your evilness," Gnarl said with a faint hint of surprise in his voice. "Why, she killed Duke Estashu, who called himself 'the Midnight Unicorn of Sorrows', led the Unicorn Knights in their very Evil plans of dominion and conquest, and employed many poor out-of-work orcs and trolls and the like in all kinds of roles, especially looking after his bloodthirsty unicorns. Very fond of horses, that man, so I hear. _Very_ fond. Oh, how that disgusting slob of a vampire raged at the news, because he had foolishly leant money to him. She murdered dozens of perfectly innocent cultists in the Black Nunnery of Trecht. She killed Kerrjo, the Black Poet of Shadows. And he was a dragon, so that was no small feat. Just because he was Evil, rather than for a proper reason like the fact that he was really bad at rhymes."

"Really bad," one of the lesser minions, who was wearing a floppy hat which looked like it had been taken from some merchant, confirmed. "Once, he try to make 'lemon' go with 'demon', and when people object, he say that," the minion concentrated, "he say that 'the contra-sense and vio-lay-shun of patterns is statement of de-literate intent'. I think that rubbish, but he giant flying lizard size of house who not take criticism well."

"In fact," Gnarl continued, "she has persecuted harmless little creatures of Evil all over the land with her disgustingly Heroic hands just because of the colour of their skin, their species, or merely because they were Evil."

"She very scary," one of the minions said in a hushed voice. "They say, if you see her and you Evil, it already too late. If you not see her, you maybe only seconds from death."

"I hear that she once wind blow Evil giant so hard, it blow up like balloon and then she pop it," added another one. "All Heroes scary, but she very scary. She not sleep. She waits."

Louise slammed her fist down on the arm of her throne. "That is enough!" she commanded.

"Under her armour, she no has fingers. She only have more wands. For more magic."

"Enough!"

"They say she blow Overlord so hard he go flying up into sky and only leave tiny twinkle behind, and that where that song come from," one hapless Minion continued in the silence.

Silently, Louise rose, eyes two burning beacons in the ill-lit hall. A perceptive observer might have noticed that she was biting on her lip, which was – despite her valiant efforts – wobbling, as if she was about to cry.

And she turned and ran out of the hall, leaving her staff behind.

"Oh, I had forgotten how hard it was handling trainee Overlords and Overladies," Gnarl said with a sigh. "Especially when they're only teenagers. The boys are always more interested in either writing sappy poetry, acquiring a harem, or getting petty revenge on people who have offending them, while the girls... well, they always seem to have so many family issues and even more petty revenges. This one... oh, if the rumours are true, she has two Heroes for parents."

"Poor mistress," said the Minion in the floppy hat. "She not get proper in-viro-mint for Evil talents. No wonder she..." the creature made what was probably meant to be a bird noise, but sounded rather more like a crushed bag of crisps, "... she not all there in her head. She think she Hero."

"Oh, quite so. I wonder if her talents come from there. Good and Evil are so very close at times; just look at how many proper terrible figures of darkness have thrice-damned Heroes for children, and how many children of Heroes come to their senses. But if both her parents are Heroes... we will need to be more careful." Gnarl paused. "Or, rather, I will be more careful, and I will send any Minion who is stupid in front of me to be in the front waves of the attacks to reclaim the tower heart."

Maggat rubbed the brand on his left hand. "What if she run away, Boss?" he asked, nervously. "If we no have master, everything be bad again. And not just because we not have funny booms to watch."

"She won't. Even now, she will go sulk off into her room, decide that the best way to act against Evil is to learn as much of it as possible so she is warned and armed against it, and... hmm," Gnarl stroked his goatee. "Yes, she looks like the sort to rationalise that Evil does not exist, and it's just a matter of opinion. That's a terrible habit, because it means you try to do Good in the name of Evil, but she'll lose that in time."

"You sure, boss?" said another one. "She tricksy, in a sort of violent way. Like how she trick us into setting ourselves on fire by pretending that it accident and then telling us to put it out."

"Evil is in her blood," Gnarl said, simply. "For all that she might try to fight it or deny it, she was born to be an Overlady. And Evil always finds a way."

He paused.

"Also, Licket, report to the duty torturer for the inestimable stupidity of that last comment."

 


	4. The Dark and Evil Start of Evil Darkness 1-4

_"Louise, you have to realise that not everyone is nice all the time. Sometimes even I can be a real pain in the neck. But there are people who try to be nice and sometimes fail, and there are people who don't even try. Try to be one of the first type, 'kay?"_

– Cattleya Yvette La Baume Le Blanc de la Vallière

* * *

 

Through the dank and squalid halls of her ruined tower, Louise de la Vallière stumbled, tears blurring her vision.

Her mother was going to kill her. Metaphorically and, sadly, literally. She was a dead woman walking. She was doomed. Doomed. No way out at all. Her mother was infamous for killing evil things, to the extent that even a stupid smelly goblin who had been locked in a cage for eighty years had heard of her. And she just _knew_ that if one thing could make her mother come out of retirement, it would be to hunt down a daughter who was 'dishonouring the family name'. A stupid, useless, dead weight of a daughter who turned out to be evil.

Her mother was going to kill her.

She could run away. No, wait, she couldn't. She'd tried that already, and ended up in this mess in the first place. And now she knew evil magic and had felt that feeling of rightness, of properness when using evil spells which meant that – nonsensically, impossibly – her element was evil. Oh, certainly, she could make fire, but it was evil fire! Normal fire didn't burn like that, didn't make choking burning smoke like that!

Also, the entrance way hadn't been cleared yet. And she had a tower partially full of goblins who were all her familiars and probably would follow her and she still didn't have a normal familiar and… argh!

Her mother was going to _kill_ her.

Panting, tired, she slumped down against a wall, and then shrieked as she realised that it was wet and smelt strongly of mould. The back of her dress would be _ruined_. Hands balled into fists, she pulled herself to her feet wearily, and stomped off to find a more convenient wall to slump against.

It was only when she heard the knocking from the other side that she realised that the wall was in fact a door. A heavy, cast iron door, with a white 'V' daubed on it.

"Hey!" someone whispered from the other side. Their accent was somewhat coarse; they sounded very much like a northern peasant from somewhere around the La Rochelle area. "Who's it out there? Is it 'nother one of them stinking goblings? Louis? Is that you? Can you let me out or something, or at least give me some food. I ran out, an' I'm real sorry for getting in a fight with Claudine! I promise I won't do nothing bad like that no more!"

Louise groaned.

"I bet you had a hard day, moi darlin'," the woman added, with an obvious faint note of desperation in her voice. "I'll be all ready to do all the special stuff an' I'll do that thing with the other brides that you like so much. Just let me out an' let me have food an' I'll be all ready for you just like you want, yeah? I'll even settle for one of them goblings."

Pulling herself up for the second time, and peeking through the slot in the door, Louise could see that the room was a woman's bedroom – and a rather better one than the one she was currently using. The woman on the other side of the door only looked to be a few years older than her, if that, and was pale and dark haired, a slightly exotic cast about her features. She was also wearing badly applied lip rouge and streaked and smeared charcoal under her eyes which looked like it had been applied by a blind clown wearing boxing gloves.

"Louis? That you? Or is it one of them stinking goblings?" the woman asked, a faintly nasal whine entering her voice.

Louise took a deep breath. "No," she said, slowly. "I'm Louise. Louise de la Vallière. I'm… who are you? Why are you locked up in here?"

"The master of this place, the lord, 'e locked me up in here because I fought one of 'is other brides," the woman said, her face pale. "Who are you?"

"I… he's dead now," Louise answered. Apparently this peasant was not the sharpest knife in the drawer – or even the sharpest knife in the spoon compartment – given that she had, in fact, just given her name. "He's locked you up in here and isn't feeding you?"

The woman cowered. "Please don't hurt me!" she begged. "What… what are you, some kinda Hero?" Her hands went up to cover her mouth. "I… I was a maid in one of the nearby castles but… but the vampire… 'e takes 'is brides from places around and he tooked me away and put me in 'ere." The other woman began to sob. "I just want to go 'ome," she said, turning away from Louise. "Please!"

Louise looked around wildly. She certainly didn't have any keys, but… ah, yes. She could do that. "Stand back!" she instructed, as she began to chant the spell for the fire. Maybe she might be able to melt off the lock if she did it this way – certainly, it burned hot enough to melt iron if applied for long periods, so she should probably be able to fry the door if she tried hard enough.

As she expected, the metal hissed and bubbled as she applied the orb to it, and with a pop the entire lock fell out of the door, splatting on the floor and and bubbling sparks. Nudging the dark bit of the door with her shoe, the girl pushed it open, and took a look around.

And since she was no longer constrained to what she could see through a narrow slit, she took in what was in the room

She blinked.

She looked again, and her eyes, flaring bright, glared at the peasant.

"I can explain," the woman began, a hint of fang visible as she spoke.

Louise cast gouts of pink fire into the room. Again and again and again, starting with the dark-haired woman and moving onto the other... things. Panting, coughing, trembling in rage, she did not dismiss the ball of fire in her hand, instead holding it before her like a talisman in the smoke-filled room.

That… that… that…

She began to sob, flame still held aloft as if its light was the only thing that could protect her. Again and again, she lobbed fire into the room, openly weeping, until the smoke forced her away from the entrance and the screaming stopped.

She… the woman had been a vampire. She had killed her. Burned her alive. Burned her undead. And in there… oh Founder. Oh God.

There was… had been… a - oh God, she didn't even want to think it - a paper-dry, shrivelled corpse of a child in there... anyone who would condemn her for that was almost as bad as the vampire. Almost, but not quite.

No, nothing was as bad as that grey parchment-skinned pathetic lump that had been in the corner, skin wrapped tight around the skull, the hollow eyesockets staring accusingly at her. That was not a metaphor. It... it was still moving. It... it...

Louise retched, and emptied her stomach of her breakfast made of suspicious fungus bread and dubious fungal beer onto the floor. And heaved again and again, until only bile came out.

It wasn't so bad when they were only skeletons. Even though there had been some child-sized skeletons down there, they were just clean bone. They weren't someone only dead maybe a week, who... who might have still been alive when she ended up in this forsaken sticking horrible ruined tower.

And however much Gnarl talked about 'evil' and the like, no. This thing gave Louise sudden certainty in her own mind. As long as you had faith and enjoyed the state of grace, it was what you did which really mattered. Magic wasn't good or evil; it simply was. It didn't matter if the spell you cast was called "Hellfire" or "Fireball"; certainly not compared to who you were casting it _at_.

If Gnarl said that her power was pure evil… well, _she_ never would drain a child dry of blood and then reanimate the corpse. If he called her 'evil', then that was his opinion, but that was something she would never, ever do. Which meant that either what the vampire had done was not evil – which was utterly ridiculous – or his definition was wrong. And that made far more sense, because… well, she was quite aware that there were corrupt, treasonous nobles and priests and the like who justified their actions as being good when they were doing things unbecoming of their station.

It was one of the things her mother had always told her; the ore of intention and will must be forged by actions into the steel of proper conduct. Nobles who acted in improper ways, for all that they might claim to be honourable, were unbecoming of the title. Priests who broke their vows were not good, for all that they might read the holy books of Brimir. One could have all the best intentions in the world, but if one did not _act_ to carry out that intent, sat back and let evil things happen, or broke one's vows to queen and country… such a person was not good, no matter what they said.

And if that was true for good, why was it not also true for evil? Why could evil creatures not actually be doing good things, but justifying it as evil because that was the way they were raised? Their perspective on the world might be inverted and be wicked and sinful, but just as men could fall… who could say that goblins could not rise?

Louise smiled to herself. Yes. She would say proudly to Gnarl that she would be the Evil Overlady for Evil Itself, and only she would know what she meant by that. So what if her magic was allegedly evil? When she killed a vampire with pink-burning fire which let off choking white smoke, how was that different from Kirche von Zerbst doing it with smokeless orange fire? The vampire was left just as dead, and the world was made a better place because of it.

"Rule of Steel," she whispered to herself.

So she would train to be "evil". She would learn her magic, what it could do, and how best to use it. She would take control of the minions, and enslave goblins from the wilderness where they could no longer attack villages; instead they would obey her. And she would keep her own council, and act as _she_ saw fit and proper action, and would not let a stupid old goblin define her as evil. She knew right, she knew wrong, and she knew the difference between the two. And doing that with a child could never, ever, ever be right, no matter what deeds some ancient goblin might attribute to 'good' and 'evil'. And killing a vampire who had done that could never, ever be wrong.

She would act as her mother would have her act, and make her proud.

No matter what monsters she might face.

_Louise swung her staff around in a half-circle, sending the skeleton's head flying. Stepping back, she chanted the spell for her fire, and the pink-burning orb formed in her hand. "Get back!" she yelled at the minions ahead of her who were enthusiastically tearing their way through the dead, before she lobbed the ball of fire overarm._

_It hit a lurching, putrid zombie in the chest, and the mindless undead creature went up like a torch, burning bright pink. The thick clouds of fluffy white smoke coiled around it, and the other zombies nearby visibly charred in the heat. Sadly, the girl thought, they didn't need to breath._

_Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a movement along the ceiling, made visible by the burning zombie. The spider-scuttling human on the ceiling... no, vampire she realised, looking at the red-glowing eyes... was heavily muscled and clawed, with a maw full of sharp fangs and..._

_"Fireball!"_

_The miscast knocked it off the ceiling, trapping its arm under a fallen rock, and then it was all over for the vampire as the Minions fell upon it._.

No matter what unpleasant deeds she might have to do.

_Louise folded her arms, and glared. "Oh no you don't!" she ordered. "Get on your feet, all of you! None of you are getting to rest until at the very least you have whitewashed the left wall of the main hall! We'll redecorate later, but I am not holding court in a room covered in old bloodstains!"_

_"Your evilness," wailed Gnarl, "this is not done! You can't be an Overlady in a plain whitewashed hall! You should at least be blackwashing it! White is not an evil colour! Except when it's bone-white. But that's..."_

_Louise raised a hand. "Maggat," she said simply._

_"Oooh, ooooh!" the beskulled minion said enthusiastically. "Mistress and I do money counting, and she realise we not have money to do painting of walls and like. So I go visit Igni, and he mix some things together, and then there explosion. Then I fetch Scyl and he bring Igni back from dead. Then we try more things, and there lots of skellies lying around, and we find we can make white paint from bones! And I tell mistress, and she say I do well and can has beer! So paint is made from bones of victims!"_

_Gnarl pursed his lips. "That... is... acceptable..." he said slowly, as if the words were pulled out from him._

_Sitting on her throne, Louise tried not to smirk._

No matter what horrors she might face.

_"And now," said Gnarl, "we move onto finance and accounting. One of the most important rules for being a dark lord… or lady in your case… is ensuring that sufficient copies are made of vital documents. This is something that half-bit pathetic wannabe Overlords, like that disgusting vampire never learn. If you don't keep proper records of your tax, tribute and pillaging gains, and of outgoing expenditures, you might not notice that some Heroic thief is stealing from you or that the giant gold statue of yourself is beyond your means. And that, my lady, simply will not do."_

_Gnarl coughed, and clicked his fingers, prompting four minions to come running in laden down with heavy books._

_"I advise you, my lady, to devote your spare time to reading up on these books. Start with 'The Basics of Accountancy', before moving onto more advanced texts like 'Implementing a Triple Leger Scheme in Large Scale Organisations', 'Von Nuyher's Guide' – that's a rather good book on demonic contract law, although really no more than a primer for the field – and my very favourite book, 'Legers and Tables of Standardised Exchange Rates for Incorporeal Valuables'. It's really a gripping read. And this is only volume one; there are four more! Oh, I do hope they bought out a new edition when I was imprisoned!"_

She would make her parents proud of her.

* * *

 

And so it came to pass, almost three months later, that Louise de Vallière lowered her hand, watching as the monster made from three stitched-together reanimated orcs fell to the ground. Around her was the crackle of fireballs from the few Red minions she had, the moaning of the living dead, and the enthusiastically violent noises that minions made when beating a zombie to death – undeath, redeath, whatever – with its own arm.

The noises died down. Louise ignored the chatter of the minions as they began to deliver their plundering to Maggat, who had acquired from somewhere – Louise was not sure she wanted to know where – a large burlap sack to carry such things.

"Treasure! For you!" announced a minion, presenting her with a gold necklace. The beast had just acquired an opera cape for itself, and appeared to want to be getting back to the looting.

"Put it in the sack," Louise said, sighing as she looked around the chamber. She was getting _really_ sick of that phrase, along with 'For you', 'For the Overlady', and _especially_ 'For the Overlord' from those minions who were still rather slow at learning the details of human sexes. Human genders. Yes. That was what she meant.

For the first time, she could pause for a moment to look around the place and so get to really see the room that she had just finally – after several failed attempts which had cost her minions – taken. Surprisingly, the still-burning corpses were not the main source of light down here. That honour instead belonged to the blue-glowing orb which hovered in mid-air, between a stalagmite and a stalactite which almost touched. There were giant ruined statues all around the edge of the room, their heads alone taller than she was, and either the artists had been terrible, or at least one of them had originally been a woman's body before a man's head had been used to replace the original ones. The remaining eyes on the heads glowed like her own eyes, adding orange-yellow light to the blue from the orb and the pink of her fires. The floor of this area was built at its level, and so no small number of undead – and the occasional minion – had taken fatal falls over the edge of the platform, to whatever lay below.

Louise was not quite sure she wanted to know. Over the past few months, she had her minions had clawed their way down nearly five storeys. The revelation that this place went deeper was unwelcome, especially since the various undead monstrosities down here had gotten tougher and more... manufactured. Like that thing made from three orcs sewn together.

"This was the old throne room, my lady," said Gnarl from directly behind her, which made Louise nearly jump out of her skin. Somehow, the ancient goblin had made his way behind her, delicately picking his way over the various mashed and mangled corpses of the undead. "The thirteenth Overlady had it moved. Or was it the fourteenth? Memory fades with time. Oh well. Possibly the only sensible thing she did, because she didn't last long. It has a more impressive view, but it was so much harder to get to. Still, this is the tower heart. Somewhat damaged, but still operational. And..." he pointed with one bony finger, "... that, my lady, is the Gauntlet."

Almost lost in the blue glow of the tower heart was a small bubble of bloody red light. There was something in it; something which looked like a fist.

Carefully, deliberately Louise began to walk towards the large orb. It was not merely out of a sense of the dramatic. The causeway-bridge-thing-whatever which lead to it was littered with bodies, and also got rather narrow in places. She really did not want to slip and fall here. It would be highly embarrassing.

Also fatal, if the fall went over the edge into the... darkness. Which reached down and down and down, beyond the light of the tower heart and... now she was getting woozy and this was _really_ not the time for vertigo.

Why were there no safety rails here? Why why why why?

Mercifully, the platform got wider as it looped around the tower heart, and Louise could breathe more easily – even with the smoke in the air. This close, she could see the damage to the tower heart. It was cracked, and entire chipped splinters were missing from it. The light from it appeared, strangely, to be the same light that enveloped the gauntlet, somehow changing colour when it moved between the two. Which wasn't how light worked. She took another step forward, and the glow of red light around the gauntlet washed over her face.

The entire thing thrummed, with a noise which she could only describe as 'whooooooom'.

And she realised that the noise was pulsing. It was pulsing at the same speed as her own heartbeat. That realisation led the pair of them to speed up.

She just had to put the gauntlet on, right? It was for the left hand, and looked rather too large for her.

What if it rejected her? What if she wasn't a proper Overlady, just like she hadn't been a proper mage? What if she was just going to fail again here, another failure in a long life of failures? Louise the Zero, Louise the Useless, Louise the Pathetic.

"Hurry up," Gnarl called out. "They'll be serving dinner upstairs soon enough!"

The girl took a deep breath, and then without exhaling took a second deeper one. Screwing her eyes shut, she thrust her left hand into the red light.

Coolness washed over her left hand, and she opened her eyes, letting her breath out in an explosive burst. She had just meant to grab it, but the gauntlet had somehow folded itself around her hand and resized as it did it. Now her left hand was covered in steel, all the way up to the elbow. The armour was decidedly more... feminine than it had been before, too. It was still a plate gauntlet, but the fingers were less fat and the claw-like fingers almost seemed to have nails.

Louise de la Vallière flexed her hand. It barely felt like she was wearing anything on the arm, and yet when she made a fist she heard her metal fingers click against her armoured palm. She felt the same fundamental _rightness_ about this armour as she had when she had first cast the fire spell, and she slowly raised her hand.

A deep bellow sounded out, like a horn from the depths, only the sound emanated from her hand. All around the room, minions ceased with their looting, pillaging, and trying on desecrated bodies as hats, and flocked to her. The strange gem-like thing on the back of the armour flared green, and the runes branding the minions burned brighter for a moment, making the creatures flinch in pain, before the light died down to the same yellow-pink as her eyes.

"Mistress," Gnarl said approvingly, "and I can rightfully call you that now, may I be the first to congratulate you on recovering the gauntlet. It is perhaps the truest emblem of your office, and rather suits you. Now! Now the Evil deeds can _really_ begin."


	5. The Same Thing We Do Every Night 2-1

_“Rule one of demonology; never let an uppity git think that just because he has a pair of horns and a pitchfork, he can boss you around. You know what else has horns? Sheep!”_  
  
–  Gnarl

 

* * *

“Well,” Louise said clearly and trying her hardest not to stammer, leaning on her staff while she kept the ball of fire in clear sight, “there are two things you can do. There is the easy way, and the also pretty easy way. Uh, but the second one has more burning.”  
  
She paused, and consulted the note she’d her to the sleeve, trying to ignore the cheeping of birds. It was not really an appropriate backdrop for what she was doing. Even if she was doing it in a swamp which was _disgusting_ and there were probably _frogs_ around – Founder, she hated frogs so much – and she really, really wanted a bath and... focus, focus, focus.  
  
“You can give up, and obey me. Or I can throw this fireball at you and then my minions will bludgeon you lot unconscious and you’ll be taken back to my… um… tower.”  
  
Behind her, the collection of her minions, mostly armoured in rusted iron or bits of re-dead undead leered, made threatening gestures, made rude gestures, or carried out some combination of the aforementioned. And standing on the other side of the clearing, the ragtag tribe of goblins made similar gestures back.  
  
Now that she had spent some time around minions, she could see how the goblins were different. They were... well, patchwork was the best word to describe it. They looked a bit like scrawnier, more feeble browns, but their skins varied from a dark yellow to a mucky green, their eyes were duller, and there was a small cluster towards the back who had curled horns like reds. They did rather look just like the pictures of goblins she had seen in various bestiaries back at the Academy, which made it easier. The largest of the goblins stepped forwards, and yattered something in some crude tongue.  
  
Maggat, standing behind Louise cleared his throat. “Ahem,” he said. “Goblin chief, he say that scary-eye-lady not scare him now or in future. She have the scary eyes of slave-making, but she not wear armour. He say he kill her and take her shiny hand.” Maggat paused. “He say other things, but most of it swearing or saying rude things about us minions,” he added.  
  
“Oh.” Louise sucked on her lower lip. The chief goblin was larger than the others, and had better armour – it looked like it might have once belonged to a royal roadwarden. That was confirmed by the dried-looking human head hanging from his belt, which in its own way made everything easier.  
  
“ _My lady, stick to the plan_ ,” Gnarl said, his voice echoing in her head.  
  
She nodded. “In th-that case, I challenge their leader to... to a duel!” she announced, clenching her armoured hand into a fist. “If I win, all his followers will serve me!”  
  
There was muttering from the goblins, and a single barked word from the chieftain, who drew a ‘sword’ which appeared to be a stolen butcher’s cleaver.  
  
“Deal,” Maggat translated unnecessarily.  
  
Louise swallowed. “Has he killed many other humans before?” she asked her henchminion, idly bringing her left hand up so the fireball held within lit her face from below.  
  
There was another chatter of goblin language. “Oh yes,” Maggat translated. “He say that he kill many two of two of human. He say he going to kill you and use you for...” the brown minion trailed off. The reason he trailed off was because Louise had just exhaled onto the fireball, sending a tongue of pink fire roiling and boiling forth.  
  
It consumed the chieftain, who briefly screamed and was cut off. As the thick white smoke parted, the charred bones of the leader and the red-hot remnants of the metal he had been carrying revealed themselves.  
  
“Any other of you goblin snot-heads want to fight Overlady?” Maggat announced proudly.  
  
The general consensus was ‘No’, and those goblins stupid even by the low standards of the minions were quickly clubbed unconscious by extremely prejudiced violence. Another set of goblins had been acquired from the trackless swamplands, and the long and unpleasant trek back to the tower to have them sworn to her. And at least she had come up with the bright idea to be carried on a palanquin so she didn’t have to get her feet wet.

* * *

  
Louise was in a vile mood when she got back.  
  
“Have them flogged! Extra!” she snapped at the guards at the now-cleared entrance to the tower. “I mean it! I w-want to see them all suffer for that!” Sulking, she stomped her way up to her new bedroom. She had managed to find a place on the partially ruined second storey where someone had installed shutters – which looked like they had been torn from a peasant house at some point – and so got natural light. It was much improved from the squalid place she had started in. Albeit only in the sense that a barn was improved over a burnt-out shell – she was still living in a ruin.  
  
It said something of how she had been forced to lower her standards that she now looked forwards to the hip bath the minions had salvaged from that room full of animated severed hands. Which had all possessed immaculately manicured nails. That had been very strange.  
  
Louise filled the bath with rainwater from the barrel in the room, and then held a fireball underwater until it was hot. She stripped off her stinking swamp-soaked clothing and tossed it away, where it splattered. That was _another_ dress ruined, and for the last few months she had been living in clothes found in this place. Ones in her size were not exactly common, and that was before the moral issues which came from the fact that they had probably come from the victims of the vampires, or the aesthetic issue that most of them were made for commoners and were not up to her standards.  
  
Minion attempts at laundry had... not gone well.  
  
She screamed in rage, which made her feel slightly better. One of the captured goblins had tried to escape, and she had been knocked off her palanquin into the swamp. She was _drenched_ and _smelly_ , and… she screamed again. The only thing which had not been utterly soaked was the gauntlet, which she kept on. It felt nice to wear, and... honestly, now that she had it, she felt naked without it. More naked, that was. With a sigh, she sunk into her hot bath, clicking metal fingers against the side.  
  
And then those _disgusting_ little goblins had made fun of her tower when they had arrived. And said things like ‘Me see no tower’ and ‘Overlady tower flat as chest’, at least according to Maggat’s translations.  
  
Oh, they were going to be flogged to within a centimetre of death, if she had any say in the matter. She sank deeper into her cramped bath, blowing dark bubbles of wrathful vengeance.  
  
Though she hated to admit it, that was probably one advantage of being... er, less advanced in the height department. She could actually, if she huddled up enough, manage to just about sink her head down low enough to get it underwater, and try her best to rid herself of the smell of swamp before it joined the normal smell of dank tower.  
  
Opening her eyes underwater, she stared up at the ceiling. When she got back to civilisation, she would never complain about little things like servants being late bringing towels again. God. How she missed life’s little necessities like that. Or lemon-scented soap. Or... well, soap that wasn’t made, like so much of the products of minion manufacture, from mushrooms and rats. She had eaten far, far too much mushroom and rat in the last few months. Eating rats. Eurgh.  
  
Well, okay, maybe the _rat au vin_ wasn’t too bad.  
  
She realised that a pair of beady eyes was staring down at her, and sat upright with a splash.  
  
“Ah, your evilness. I see you are in a particularly cruel and vindictive mood today! Excellent,” said Gnarl, straightening up from where he had been peering down at her. The old minion was showing his normal capacity to be impressed by her tempers as long as they were suitably extravagant, which... well, honestly, when she had calmed down Louise felt slightly shamed by that approval. “I shall have to see if we can obtain a torture chamber for you for such moments, although, of course, that will be dependent upon an improvement in your financial circumstance.  
  
Louise shrieked, and huddled into a ball, trying to cover herself. “Wh-what are you doing in here?” she blurted out at her senior advisor, while the jester – who sadly had survived everything she had directed at it – capered around behind him. Her cheeks flushed bright red with embarrassment.  
  
“I came to speak to you, my…”  
  
“I’m having a b-bath! Get out!”  
  
She was sure Gnarl was leering. “But your evilness, previous overladies took great delight in taking briefings while in a less dressed state. Or sometimes dressed only in blood and the guts of their foes, or many other often imaginative permutations, or…”  
  
“Then they are indecent h-hussies who were no better than they should have been! And…”  
  
“The Exhibitionist!” contributed the jester, who was rewarded for his wit by an explosion to the face. The minion slammed head-first into the wall, and lay there, twitching, but Louise paid him no attention. She… she had just… just used the gauntlet as a wand.  
  
Huh. That meant that… huh. That was, really, really…  
  
Louise’s native language did not actually use the word ‘cool’ to describe things unrelated to the thermic state of an object. But nevertheless, she thought “cool”. It was a hot, squirming little thought, and the gleam in her eyes spoke of explosions in the future. She had thought it had been the staff, but if the gauntlet supported it too… no, it was probably best to keep the length of heavy iron for when things didn’t require large explosions or fatal burnings.  
  
And when she thought about it, it did make sense. After all, there were wand-swords and staff-glaives and other weapons, and the gauntlet was a powerful magical item made to be used by a mage, right?  
  
Her chain of thought was interrupted by the realisation that the jester looked like he was getting up. So she blew him up again. “You mentioned torture chambers, Gnarl?” she said sweetly, keeping her legs huddled up and her right arm protectively in front of her.  
  
“Indeed I did, my lady, but that was not why I came here. No,” said the elderly minion, “I came to report that we have finished counting the plunderings from the goblin camp, and that the beasts themselves have now been processed and are _proper_ minions, as they were always meant to be.”  
  
“That’s nice,” Louise said, bluntly, “but I’m having a bath. You can’t just walk in h-here! I’ll… I’ll talk to you when I find new clothes and… and get dressed and…”  
  
“It is on the topic of clothes that I wished to speak,” Gnarl said, stroking his goatee. “My lady, as it stands your garb is not appropriate for one of your standing. Quite frankly, you can’t be an Overlady in old worn dresses like this! And with the wealth acquired from the most recent minion raid, we can finally afford something better quality and more fitting for your station.” The old minion pursed his lips. “I will meet you down in the tower heart room when you are ready for a journey, my lady.”  
  
Gnarl shuffled out of the room, pausing to drag the jester out by its ear. Louise sunk back down into her bath, still blushing. She would need to find a way to bar the door. She wasn’t sure if minions were male or female under the loincloth, but Gnarl at least _sounded_ male, and that was bad enough!

* * *

  
  
The tower heart room had been cleared of the corpses littering it and the blood on the floor had dried, but it was still lacking in things that would prevent one from taking a perilous fall over the side. Louise tried her best not to look down as she made her way over to where Gnarl was waiting, by the heart itself.  
  
She was still not best inclined towards him for intruding on her bath like that, but now that she was washed, dried, no longer smelt of swamp, and had a fresh mostly-fitting dress on, things were better. The black gown-like garment still had to be belted in at the waist, but at least it did not assume that she was built like Kirche von Zerbst up top, and she had added breeches under it because the fact it was slit to the mid-thigh meant her legs were getting cold.  
  
“Mmm, my lady. Yes, of the goblin tribe, nine of them became browns when processed, seven greens, four reds, and one single blue,” Gnarl said, as if nothing was wrong, “which is a useful thing indeed. This brings your combined number of minions back over one hundred and thirty, after the losses which were taken claiming the tower heart.” Louise nodded in approval. “Should you wish to check our reserves of life energy, you can do so,” Gnarl added, “but without a minion hive we cannot use it. We should look towards acquiring one, and in the meantime, among certain clients we can use it in payment.”  
  
“I see,” said Louise, who didn’t, really. She intellectually knew that the glowing life force which she could see when she was wearing the gauntlet was the thing that they could make new minions from, but she wasn’t really sure that she should be trading it to anyone.  
  
“This is relevant, because on the topic of obtaining a proper mode of dress for you,” Gnarl said, rubbing his hands together, “there’s an old friend of mine who from what I have been able to gather lives in your capital city nowadays.”  
  
Louise raised her eyebrows. Gnarl was, not to put things bluntly, a malevolent goblin-thing who had been stuck in a cage for decades. “A friend of yours lives in Bruxelles?” she asked, sceptically.  
  
“Oh, is that what the place is called nowadays?” he asked. “Yes, that’s what I have managed to pick up. I would beckon him here directly, but… well, you know how the tower heart is damaged, your evilness. You will have to travel there most of the way yourself; it doesn’t have the power to properly reach more than twenty miles or so. And so…”  
  
The girl frowned. “What’s a mile?”  
  
Gnarl blinked. “… my lady?” he asked, momentarily and unusually lost for words.  
  
“A mile. What is that? Is it an old-fashioned word for metre?”  
  
“What’s a metre?”  
  
They stared at each other, caught in momentary dimensional uncertainty.  
  
“Is it a large distance?” Louise asked.  
  
“A mile is… a mile,” Gnarl said helplessly.  
  
She shifted her shoulders, and stood up. Well, I’m a bit over a metre and a half tall,” she said, helplessly.  
  
Beady eyes scrutinised her. “Well. Fine, it seems your ‘metre’ is about a yard. Probably named after some self-righteous Hero type who decided to name the unit of measurement after himself rather than a good old fashioned yard. And a mile is one thousand, seven hundred and sixty yards.”  
  
Louise stared at him. “You’re joking,” she said, flatly. “That’s _stupid_. Why in God’s name would you have such a _stupid_ number?”  
  
“Ah, it has great occult and mystical…”  
  
“ _Stupid_. There are one thousand metres in a kilometre. Things are easy, simple, and don’t require me to memorise stupid numbers.” She folded her arms. “That is final!”  
  
“… yes, my lady,” muttered Gnarl, a hunt of sullenness in his voice. “But your evilness, the tower heart works in miles, because it is a bad old traditional device, not using your silly modern measurements. It will not understand your ‘kilometres’.”  
  
“Then we shall deal with it when we have worked out a way to handle such an annoyance,” Louise said imperiously, squaring her jaw.  
  
“Your evilness, I am pleased to see you are working on your royal we,” Gnarl said, “even if you are wasting it on such a silly topic.”  
  
The girl blinked. “Oh, no, I meant that you were going to help me do it.”  
  
“As you wish, your evilness,” Gnarl said, in an impeccable manner, before turning the conversation back on topic. “My… acquaintance is of the demonic persuasion, but fear not for your virtue, because he is retired from the incubus business. His name came up as someone who knows how to find people who can provide services for specialist clients.”  
  
Louise pursed her lips. This was the first major moral challenge for her. Killing or enslaving goblins was… well, actually it actually was a good act in the eyes of God; there had been a papal declaration of that and everything. Consorting with demons – and in the case of incubi, it was literal consorting – was about as far away from good as one could get. “Retired?” she echoed.  
  
“Oh yes, according to word on the Evil street,” Gnarl said confidently. “And, your ladyship, when he was working he would not have been interested in you.”  
  
There had to be a logical reason for Gnarl saying that, Louise thought, and therefore there was probably a good reason she should not explode at him. Yet. “And why was that?” she hissed.  
  
“Excellent hiss, your evilness,” Gnarl remarked. “Well, the reason he would not have considered you among his clientèle is that you are female.”  
  
She blinked. “I thought you said he was an incubus.”  
  
“Oh yes.”  
  
Right. She wasn’t going to think about that. “And he’ll know where to get things?” she said, skittering away from that particularly conversational topic.  
  
Gnarl nodded, the light hanging behind him bobbing up and down. “Yes, my lady. He’ll either be able to provide the equipment himself, or he’ll know who can. In addition, his name came up so often that I think he has even wider contacts than he must have had in the old days; that means that he might know things like where some of the treasures from the tower went, or where the missing chips from the tower heart are. And that,” and a tone of menace entered Gnarl’s voice, “is why it will be a good idea to keep on good terms with him.”  
  
Louise nodded. All right. Yes. She wasn’t consorting with an incubus. She was just… going to see an information source. And it was okay to deal with evil information brokers; just look at Gnarl. “I understand,” she said. “So I… can go by the tower heart?”  
  
“Indeed. Lickit!” Gnarl called out, prompting a minion to scurry forwards carrying a mass of black fabric in his hands.  
  
“For the master!” the minion announced proudly.  
  
Gnarl cuffed him over the back of the head. “Mistress, Lickit,” he sighed. “Yes, the proper garb for an Overlady going concealed among the disgusting lands of Good and fluffiness and bunnies and the like,” he said.  
  
Louise shook the garment out, revealing it to be a long, tailored and – shockingly – clean black robe. It looked warm and comfortable and like it would actually fit her. “Where did you get this?” she demanded accusingly.  
  
Gnarl shrugged. “We found another bride,” he said. “She happened to be your size.”  
  
“Blood come out in washing!” Lickit added, helpfully.  
  
The pink-haired girl shuddered, and put it on. It was just as warm and comfortable as it had looked; a long hooded robe which reached down to her ankles, which was slightly too long in the sleeves but which she thought that even her limited sewing skills could extend to fixing.  
  
“I will help you with the negotiations,” Gnarl said, “but I will stay here. I’m old and don’t like travelling, and also I don’t think the little darlings should be left alone, especially when we’re still assimilating a sizable goblin contingent.”  
  
That was probably a good idea, Louise agreed.  
  
“Now, as for how you use the tower heart? Well, you have read the theory, yes. It’s not really necessary, but it helps. Simply put your hand on the tower heart, think of the right place from the visions it shows you, and step through it,” Gnarl said.  
  
The girl frowned. Surely it couldn’t be that easy to carry out an act of magic which even the mightiest square mages could barely manage for short distances.

* * *

  
  
It was late afternoon when Louise stepped into the surface of the tower heart, and out – and through it – to an old ring of stones which lay, half-fallen, on a grassy hilltop.  
  
Apparently it was that easy.  
  
“ _Is this thing on? Ah, good, can you hear me? I can hear you. I was worried that the damage to the heart might have ruined its long range capacities,_ ” said Gnarl, his voice echoing through into her mind. “ _Evil news! It means you will be able to return to the tower by this tower gate! If you can find the other fragments, we will be able to increase the range. Likewise, if you can find any of the other towers or the relays, you will be able to use them to transport directly between them. And…_ ”  
  
“I can hear you,” Louise said, just so she could confirm. There was a puddle on the ground nearby, and she leaned over it, checking her face. Carefully focussing, she dampened the light in her eyes until they were no longer glowing. Her irises still seemed to be a yellow-pink, however, and she wasn’t sure if she could do anything about that. This little spell she had learned to hide the light was only a minor bit of magic, and according to the book it failed if she felt strong emotions, so maybe there was a better one out there, somewhere.  
  
“ _Malevolent! This tower gate used to overlook a road which led south… it is still there?_ ”  
  
The girl looked around. The lush green landscape of grasses and free-roaming ponies was quite in contrast to both the swamp around the tower and the stormy conditions she had ridden here in, but she thought she recognised the place.  
  
In fact, yes, she did. This was the old circle of standing stones she had noticed on the way up here, the one by the burnt tree which had been hit by lightning at some point. Which meant that, yes, down there was the road, and she could follow it south to… yes, there was a village perhaps eight kilometres away, which would be a fair walk, but there had been both an inn there and a hostelry, which meant that she could buy a horse and ride to Bruxelles.  
  
She shot a glance at the wild ponies. Someone unused to riding would have tried to ride one of them, and then been thrown off and trampled on for their pains. And they would have been rather sizeable pains, too. No, wild ponies were best left alone, she thought, leaning on her staff, and wondered where her mare had got to.  
  
Something butted her from behind. She turned and stared at the equine beast, which apparently had not heard her chain of thoughts about ‘leaving them alone’. “Shoo!” she ordered. “I don’t have any apples for you.” She paused. “Oh, Founder, I would so love an apple right now,” she added. “Or any kind of fruit. Or vegetable that isn’t a mushroom or moss or lichen or… they’ll have food at the inn. And I have no idea why I’m telling this to you, horse.”  
  
The pony retaliated by biting down on her sleeve. She managed to twist her arm out of the way – she was used to the cunning ways of such beasts – but it still managed to lock onto her sleeve. And refused to let go, no matter how much she shouted at it.  
  
So Louise punched it in the face with her armoured fist.  
  
As one, the other ponies turned to face her.  
  
“Nice ponies?” Louise tried.  
  
The beasts disagreed.  
  
The barmaid at the Fat Pig, the inn in the village of Radys was listening to the complaints of one of the pony-herders with half an ear as she polished mugs.  
  
“An’ then, no sooner did I get there than there was all this ‘orrible white smoke everywhere an’ moi ‘erd was on fire! ‘Ain’t natural, I tells you; wildfires aren’t things we should be getting in spring. I’m blamin’ that ol’ stone circle there; everyone knows it’s bad luck. Or goblings bein' paid by the elves to do stuff. I lost one o’ moi smallest ‘erds there, an’ I’m gonna be ‘ard pressed when it comes to the slaughter season,” Ol' Phil slurred, his accent lurching wildly between the regions of northern Tristain in his distress. “Where’m I’s gonna be getting moi milk and wool from if not from moi horses?”  
  
The barmaid stopped listening to the old drunk when the door opened, and a dark robed, hooded figure swept in. The stranger’s face was cast entirely in shadow in the dim lighting of the bar, and in their left hand they had a staff of black iron. For a moment, she thought she could see a strange glow from underneath the hood, but it must have just been a trick of the light. Possibly a candle reflected off a pewter mug.  
  
It would have been rather more sinister if the figure hadn’t been quite so short.  
  
“Barmaid,” the figure rasped, as it made its way over to the bar, and then paused, and coughed. “Wretched smoke,” it muttered to itself. “Barmaid,” it tried again, revealing it to be a fairly young woman. “I require a room for the night, as well as food.”  
  
“Ah… uh, yes,” the barmaid said, momentarily perplexed. “That’ll be two deniers.”  
  
“Wait a moment,” the stranger said, raising her right hand and shifting slightly to turn her back on the barmaid. “Just need to…” she fiddled with what looked like her left sleeve, “… not quite practised with this, when is it going to w… aha!” She turned back around, two silver deniers in hand. “I have it,” she said.  
  
From her accent and tone of voice, and the strange way she pronounced words like ‘‘ave’ and ‘goin’’, the barmaid could tell that the stranger was noble-born and educated, and so she prepared to be nice to her. “Thank’ee, my lady,” she said. “I’ll get the boy to show you to your room.”  
  
The stranger coughed. “And what are you serving this evening?” she asked.  
  
“Uh…” the barmaid squinted in recollection, “… that’d be a stew of salted pork an’… you know, turnips an’ carrots an’ cabbage an’ the like. It’s hardly a noble dish, but we don’t have many nobles stoppin’ by here or nothing.”  
  
“There’s no mushroom in it, is there?” the girl asked. “Or… uh, rat?”  
  
“Rat? God, no,” the brown-haired woman said, sounding shocked. “I’ll have you know moi husband runs an ‘igh class place ‘ere. An’… nah, no mushroom neither, I don’t think.”  
  
“Wonderful,” Louise breathed.

* * *

  
  
In the morning, Louise moved on, now mounted on a newly purchased horse, heading along the road which would lead her to Bruxelles.  
  
The next evening, there was a fracas at the front gate of the inn. Ol’ Phil was very badly beaten, though he swore blind that he had never seen his attacker and that they – whoever they had been – had attacked from behind. And also taken his money, his beard, his belt, his knife, and his collection of lucky horse shoes which protected him from elves.  
  
And while people were distracted, all the chickens were stolen from the henhouses, which were also smashed into firewood and set on fire. The locals blamed goblins, and sent out an advertisement looking for a Hero to save them. It had worked when they had that infestation of giant rats in the basement, hadn’t it?


	6. The Same Thing We Do Every Night 2-2

_“If there’s one place you can rely on be a site for an Evil ritual, it’s a capital city. They’re even more trustworthy than blood-soaked altars out in the woods, because it’s much easier to find a city than it is to find the specific blood-soaked altar the prophecy written by some gibbering illiterate refers to.”_  
  
–  Gnarl  
  


* * *

The hoofbeats of the black horse clattered against the smooth stone of the road. Slung over the back of the horse was a staff of black iron. It was early summer but still the rider swathed in a midnight-black robe kept their hood up. The morning mists fled from the lone figure, and ravens flocked in her wake.  
  
Louise shivered slightly. It was chill this early in the morning, and the clear skies just meant that it had been even colder at night. With a disgusted expression, she shot an annoyed stare back at the birds which followed her. The dratted things were after her breakfast, and had been following her while she tried to eat it.  
  
Well, she wasn’t going to let them have it! The girl chuckled to herself, and paused for a moment when she realised that she was giggling somewhat madly over the fact that she was not giving birds her breakfast. Maybe she had gone a little crazy from three months with the only intelligent being around she could talk to being Gnarl. She didn’t count the minions as intelligent conversation, because, well... they weren’t. It probably wasn’t normal to be quite so triumphant about it.  
  
But it was bread, which did not involve mushrooms or moss in any way! And she had bacon, made from pigs as opposed to rats! And there was butter and she had _no idea_ where the butter in the tower came from, but the choices were either bats or rats and neither was palatable. Or, come to think of it, explicable. How did you get enough milk from a rodent to make those cheeses the minions seemed to love?  
  
“You can’t have it, birds,” she whispered, as she made her way through the things she had carefully made for herself and wrapped in waxed paper when she had woken up.  
  
By the time she had finished, the capital city of Tristain was just about coming into view. From this slightly elevated position, the slums and townships of the settlements built outside the walls, sprawling and enveloping the city on the plains of Tristain. The poverty could be seen, for they were built in wood and brick. Indeed, to the north of the city, a thicker black pall rising to the heavens marked a fire. They clustered around the grey and solemn outer walls of the city, and the River Senne like children around a mother's skirts, and yet were not permitted access.  
  
Within the walls, building standards were at least somewhat maintained, and though the tenements and houses would often rise perilously to three, even four or more stories, the tallest ones were built by proper earth mages, in stone, and so stood as islands of wealth and taste within a sea of commoner constructions. This was the city of Bruxlles proper, the capital of Tristain, but compared to the city within the inner walls, where the true nobility and the wealthiest of the merchants had their holdings, its commoner-borne poverty showed through.  
  
The inner walls were notably taller and better maintained than the outer ones, and sheathed in marble, rather than grey stone. They were freshly cleaned and maintained, and stood in stark contrast to the other, lesser walls. Several former kings and queens had spent a lot of time, and money rebuilding the oldest city into a place of wide boulevards and marble. The cathedrals and churches and palaces were seamless constructs, earth mages raising them from the ground and building them without mortar, giving them a strength and beauty than no commoner-built structure could have had. White stone was capped with spires and domes of polished marble and bluestone, and gardens sprawled in the heights. From this distance, one could even see the enchantments carry the smoke away from the inner city. The palace dwelt in the precise centre, and stood almost as a city to itself, another set of fortified walls rising even higher than the ones of the inner city. Those walls were trimmed with gold ornamentation, and shone in the sunlight.  
  
“ _My eyes,_ ” Gnarl muttered, his voice echoing in Louise’s head. “ _It has got even more tasteless and disgustingly Good since the last time I saw it, and that is saying rather a lot. It makes me want to vomit. In fact, I think I will go throw up until I feel better about having seen that horrible sight._ ”  
  
There was a clatter and a scraping, and distant coughing, before Gnarl returned. “ _That city makes me quite nauseous,_ ” the elderly minion said. “ _And the hypocrisy of Good is quite obvious. Look at how only the rich get the terribly shiny things, while the poor live in admirable filth and squalor! Sometimes, Good can work out ways to oppress and control and subjugate and humiliate which previous Overlords have never dreamed of. And the way the wealth is all in the hands of a few means that looting and plundering is far easier! Like that palace!_ ”  
  
Louise paled. “I’m not going to loot Princess Henrietta’s palace!” she hissed into her gauntlet. “Not a chance! She’s one of my oldest friends.” Actually she was basically the only person Louise knew who she could even remotely call a friend in the first place, but she was not about to admit that to Gnarl.  
  
“ _Are you sure? If the treasure vaults are anything like the ones I remember, they are both very large and very full. If they haven’t spent all the gold on decorating the walls of the palace, that is. And they may well have some of the tower’s artefacts in there. But if you’re going to be careful about political matters and keep the crown on side... well, I’m sure that there must be unpopular and wealthy nobles who your princess would like to see taken down a few pegs._ ”  
  
Well, the artefacts were hers by right, and some nobles were suspected of... no! She shouldn’t even be tempted! “This topic is not a matter of discussion!” Louise snapped. “And nobles are the rightful rulers and so entitled to wealth! You say I’m an overlady... well, that just means I’m another kind of noble! Nothing changes!” She flapped the reins at her horse, which had taken the chance to pause and crop at a bush, and continued onwards.

* * *

  
Some way behind the nascent overlady was a cluster of five small children. They were certainly children, because they were dressed as children. Moreover, the fact that they would periodically go and kick over flowers, or steal chickens, or smash things just for the enjoyment of the noise they made, or occasionally jump travellers, beat them senseless, and take anything of value they were carrying merely confirmed in the eyes of anyone who saw them that they were about six years old.  
  
The people of Tristain were well aware that children were pure and innocent. However, what they were pure of, and innocent from were rather more variable. Sometimes, like with this band of hellions, it was ‘respect for property’ and ‘basic human kindness”.  
  
However, shockingly, these were not in fact children, but were in fact minions serving a force of terrible darkness. Hence, their lack of basic human kindness might have been viewed as part of their nature, and their disregard for property laws part of their job description.  
  
Maggat adjusted his bonnet, and glared at his companions. “We not need more cluckies,” he said. “We have lots of cluckies already.”  
  
“What we do now?” Igni asked, scratching his horns. The red minion smelt strongly of various alchemical reagents, and even more strongly of explosions. “We no can put cluckies back. Cluckie house on fire.”  
  
“It on fire because you set it on fire,” Maximilian – who owed his name to a former Overlord who felt that naming minions personally encouraged loyalty – said. His floppy hat squirmed and fought as if there was a chicken underneath it, which coincidentally happened to be the case. With a look of concentration, the brown minion punched himself in the hat, and grinned when the fighting stopped.  
  
Maggat folded his arms. “We wait for Scyl to go recover Fettid from pond where he chase duckie into,” he said, with an annoyed glance over at where a drenched blue wearing a wimple was dragging a dead green out of the water. “Then we move on and you can burn cluckies, Igni, so we have hot meal. Then we go after Overlady. I have plan and that means we follow it, because it not right for Overlady to go off alone without loyal minions to loot things for her.”  
  
Maximilian grinned. “We helping, right.”  
  
“Yep!” Maggat agreed, idly watching as the blue bought the green back to life. “Well, that about all we need to do.”  
  
Igni raised a hand. “Can I’s burn the house down?”  
  
Maggat shook his head. “No. We is being sneaky-like here. Now, sneaky-like, we will sneak off like we is all greens. And maybe this time Fettid not drown.”  
  
“Not my fault,” the soaked green managed, as they set off. “Duckie ran away and I ride it into water.”  
  
“Water is tricksy and cunning,” Maximilian agreed. “We has to be careful about it. You know how my poem goes. ‘There once was a sneaky lake/ Whose endless hunger could not slake / So it...”  
  
“And no poetry. At all,” ordered Maggat, hefting his rusty blade with a threatening look.

* * *

  
  
This... was not an area of Bruxelles she had ever been to before, Louise observed. Built up against the shores of the River Senne, this district was lower-middle income despite its proximity to the inner city. Maybe the sight of the shining walls lowered the price of housing here, because commoners didn’t like having their faces rubbed in how they were inferior to the wealthy, she didn’t know. She just followed Gnarl’s somewhat vague instructions until she got sick of being lost, badgered him for the name of the place and asked for directions.  
  
That had upset the elderly goblin for some reason. Apparently an overlady should not ask for directions, and the previous overlord would never have thought of doing that. Louise had suggested that the reason for that was that he was an overlord – ie, male – and Gnarl had gone quiet. Which was a blessing in itself.  
  
And so she had found her way to the Charming Fairies Inn. The large, greystone building was slightly larger than the surrounding structures, and looked fairly prosperous and well-attired for a place of commerce and trade like this. Louise noted the roses growing by the entrance, and the hired guards, and mentally made an approving note. At least it was not some scummy waterside dive, which was what novels told her such mysterious contacts often dwelt. Raising her hood again, she entered.  
  
The buzz of voices welcomed her in, along with a faint smell of wine and beer. Well, it was an inn, and that was to be expected. Someone jostled her aside as she waited in the entrance, and she went to shout at them before remembering she was meant to be here in disguise.  
  
“ _Try to find a member of the serving staff you can talk to,_ ” Gnarl suggested.  
  
“I know that!” Louise hissed under her breath. “What, do you think I’ve never done this kind of thing before?” And indeed, there was a slight gated off cubicle in a niche in the wall, just before the door which led to the main room. Through there, she could see women – rather underdressed women, she thought disapprovingly – serving drinks to the clientele. Wait, no, there was an underdressed man. And... no, she had to focus.  
  
The woman behind the counter was... decidedly female. And would have been described that way in any language one cared to mention, including Braille. Especially Braille. And any description of her in sign language would have involved cupping motions, and possibly the gesture for ‘those things are trying to escape from her dress’. Louise raised her eyes to eye-level, tried not to feel jealous, and managed to blurt out, “I w-was sent here by a... by Gnarl.”  
  
“Gnarl,” the woman said with an interestingly bouncy shrugging motion and a pronounced Gallian accent, looking down at a book in front of her. “Ah, yes, I have a scheduled reservation for a party of one for that name, under the name of Psueda Name. Is that correct?”  
  
The girl nodded.  
  
The woman unfastened the gate in front of her, leading Louise to a door behind her. “Take the steps down, Mademoiselle Name, and please, find a place to be seated,” she said.  
  
The stairs wound down underground. From the sense of height she had acquired from three months inside her ruined tower, Louise was fairly sure that she was going deeper than the basement of the building. She frowned at that, because this place was built beside the river; clearly they couldn’t be doing too badly if they could afford the mages to waterproof the structure. The light down deeper was redder, and there was perfumed smoke hanging in the air.  
  
And as she walked down a wood-lined corridor, she boggled at the sight of the – well, she been wrong in calling the serving staff upstairs scantily clad. They were not. Not compared to these ones. Louise de la Vallière felt her cheeks begin to blush, as the two men nodded her into the main underground room.  
  
“Gnarl,” Louise hissed into her gauntlet, “have you brought me to... to a place of... of ill-repute?”  
  
“ _Oh no. No, no, no,_ ” he protested.  
  
“Really? Because...”  
  
“ _I am certain that people will speak very highly of it._ ”  
  
Louise pursed her lips. That was not what she wanted to hear. Young ladies like herself should not even know that this kind of place existed – though of course they did – and they certainly should not be in such a place. It was just as bad to be in one with a chaperone as it was to be in one without! It was barely better for her to be in here as technically-a-patron than it was for her to be in here as... as an employee!  
  
She pulled her hood up. At the very least, she could manage to not be seen in this place. Louise looked around, and settled for one of the tables in the corner. Something which – God’s will – would mean she would not attract the attention of one of the serving staff in _that_ sense, because she very much did not want that. She settled down, making sure her back was against the wall, and rested her hands on her lap so she would not accidentally expose her metal-encased left hand to questions. Idly, her hand stroked the gem on it as she waited.  
  
“Psst!” someone hissed at her, breaking her from her reverie. She jerked upright, and looked around wildly; a motion which was lost entirely by her long hood.  
  
In front of her was a small group. The bright-blue-haired lead was clearly a noble, wand-sword slung at his belt, a breastplate evident under his mantle. However, he seemed to keep mixed company. There was a shifty looking woman at his side, with dirty-blonde hair and a musket slung over her back, and beside her was another woman dressed in a nun’s habit – trimmed with the marks of a healer – holding a plain staff. Finally, there was a roughly dressed man with... Louise boggled... two things which looked like the offspring of a sword and a butcher’s cleaver at his belt, his face a mess of scars. All of them were looking at her with expectant faces.  
  
“What is it?” she said, warily.  
  
The man looked around carefully. “The knightly owl hoots in the darkness only when it wishes to be heard,” he hissed. “Else it jousts at cowardly mice.”  
  
Louise sighed. Who was this madman? “Begone, stranger; I am not waiting for you,” she said imperiously. “Who cares what the owl does?”  
  
The man did not go, but instead nodded. “Good,” he said. “I come bringing ill-tidings. The Council takes more power for itself, and the Sevenfold Brotherhood finds it cannot stop the tides of change. Madame de Montespan is closing in on our commands, and we fear that she will use her influence to seize our holdings, despite the fact that we do not think she has concrete proof to what our branch in Amstelredamme has been doing. Water’s Genesis is not safe from her prying eyes. We came as soon as we received your word that you had a new quest for us.”  
  
“I’m sorry, what?” the girl said, by now thoroughly confused. “Who even are you, and why did you not go away when I told you to go?”  
  
The man blinked, and exchanged confused looks with his companions. “You gave the counterword,” he said, slowly.  
  
“What counterword?”  
  
The woman with the musket groaned. “I told you that bloody phrase was too close to something someone could say normally,” she hissed at her companion. “This is the Charming Fairies Inn, for Founder’s sake; it’s not like mysterious hooded...”  
  
A black-robed and hooded figure rose, poking their head over the divide from the next seats. “What are you idiots doing?” it hissed. “Get over here!”  
  
The noble shuffled uncomfortably. “Sorry, sorry, mistaken identity,” he said, awkwardly. “Can you please forget what I said, please?”  
  
The group left her field of vision, and Louise boggled. That had been... very strange. Maybe she needed a drink, to calm her nerves. No, that was a bad idea. She would have to take her hood down to catch the eyes of the serving staff, and she did not want them to misunderstand her intentions and...  
  
Someone cleared their throat to her right. It turned out to be a woman, dressed all in black, with dark eyes which cut a sharp contrast to her pale skin. Her hair was shaved to a close-stubble; little clinking noises as she moved indicated the presence of hidden pieces of sharp metal on her person. She took a chair without asking, and leaned towards Louise, her arms propped on the table. “Dark master,” she said, “the bishop of Nantes is dead. Command what you will of me, oh burning-eyed one.”  
  
“What?”  
  
The pale-skinned woman blushed. “Sorry, sorry,” she said hastily, “I was meant to be meeting a man. Um... I didn’t realise you were female under that hood,” She pulled herself to her feet and leapt away with a hint of an acrobat’s grace, flicking a denier onto the table. “Get yourself a drink for the inconvenience,” the shaven-headed woman said, disappearing back into the crowd.  
  
... yes. She needed a drink, and drat the consequences. Wait. Burning... were her eyes glowing? Drat, drat, drat. And she couldn’t use that minor magic until she calmed down, so... Louise looked left and right, and covered her eyes with her right hand, breathing deeply. She shouldn’t think about how she was in a house of ill-repute, or how she kept on being approached by strangers – which she hated – or that...  
  
“Ah, mademoiselle,” a voice said, addressing her for the third time in about as many minutes. With a sigh, Louise peeked through her fingers, and then gasped at shock at the sight before her glowing eyes.  
  
The man was… well, he was. He _was_. He existed, despite the immediate confines and constraints of such things as ‘common sense’ and ‘human decency’. His broad shoulders, narrow waist with clearly evident sixpack, and bulging biceps would have been attractive on another; in many ways he was built like those pictures of ancient Romalian heroes which Louise had certain fond memories of. But there was a subtle cast to his face which disquieted the girl, though she could not pin it down – something which left her feeling chilled.  
  
And his garb! Ay, his garb! It was positively indecent! It could hardly be much worse if he was entirely naked, in her opinion. His breeches were far, far too short, and he was unquestionably male; Louise really hoped that there was a codpiece down there, because that… that thing which kept on drawing her gaze made her want to cross her legs and wince. He wore a sleeveless jacket cut to expose his midriff, which somehow was worse than if he had merely been shirtless. And… yes, Louise thought, looking down – her eyes protectively skipping over the… the bulge – he was wearing clogs appropriate for a woman.  
  
Oh, and he was wearing rouge, eyeliner, and lip-paint and his moustache had been waxed and trimmed elaborately, but even that normality – it was the height of male fashion at court at the moment, after all – was not enough to excuse the rest of his dress.  
  
“ _Ah that’s him,_ ” Gnarl said with satisfaction. “ _I’d recognise that moustache anywhere. S’kareryeon, Prince of the Abyss, Master of Lies, Corrupter of Men, how are you?_ ”  
  
The man beamed, the corners of his lips turning up a little more than was perhaps normal – or human. “Ah, _tres bien_ ,” he said with an affected Gallian accent, “Gnarl, you old goblin, you! I have not heard from you in, oh! Eighty years! I had thought you might have abandoned me and our little friendship! And I go by ‘Scarron’ now!”  
  
There was an embarrassed cough from the gauntlet. “ _Nothing so simple..._ ” Gnarl began.  
  
“Well, I am sure, _mon ami_ , that you have all kinds of interesting tales to tell me of your great and Evil exploits! Unless you were stuck at the bottom of a hole for eighty years, I cannot guess what secret and dark deeds you have accomplished!”  
  
“ _I was,_ ” Gnarl said. “ _A vampire killed my last Overlord and stole the tower and locked me in a cage._ ”  
  
“Ah! Oh well, I hope he was one of those dashingly handsome vampires, with the gorgeous floppy hair and the...”  
  
“ _It was not. He was disgustingly bourgeois._ ”  
  
“Oh! My, my, my! Such a shame! We will need to catch up, _mon ami_ , have a little _tete a tete_.” Louise frowned. There were oddities in his pronunciation which led her to suspect that he did not actually speak Gallian, but was merely throwing in half-remembered phrases out of some kind of sense of obligation, she thought, as he turned his attention to her. “And, my! Gnarl, you come bearing gifts! Who is this adorable little girl with the glowing eyes! The daughter of your current overlord? My, my, someone wants his little girl to be precocious!”  
  
Gnarl coughed, “ _Ah,_ ” he began, but not quite fast enough. Louise already had her gauntlet and the hand within it pointed at the man’s face. And then with a moment’s thought, the elevation dipped somewhat.  
  
“No,” Louise said, rising to her feet; a gesture which accidentally pulled down her hood. “Gnarl, how _dare_ you make me visit this... this _disgustingly_ uncouth man! I... I will not sit here and be casually insulted!”  
  
“ _Sacre bleu_!” the man - S’kareryeon, Scarron – exclaimed. “It is Karin, come in pocket-sized disguise to wreak havoc on me! I have done nothing wrong in sixty years! Spare me!”  
  
“ _..._ ” Gnarl did not say. “ _No, S’kareryon, you are spared that much. She is a new overlady, and one who shows rather a bit of promise in her mastery of cruel imperiousness and ill-temper. Why, she beats up, burns, hits or otherwise punishes her jester at every opportunity!_ ”  
  
The man wiped his brow. “Ah, thank all that is wrong,” he said. “I was terribly afraid that a most dreadful woman would come and peel off all my skins with flaying winds for all kinds of minor wrongdoings in my past.  
  
“ _Oh, don’t sell yourself short,_ ” Gnarl commented. “ _You’re the high prince of the Incubi and the lord of the rising tower, master of the one-eyed giants of Angarok and the purple-helmeted guardians of the V’hanemsaw depths. Your wrongdoings are rather more than minor._ ”  
  
Scarron flapped a hand in Louise’s direction. “Oh, you charmer, you,” he said, smiling. “But alas, I too am down on my luck for the last sixty years.” He shook his head sadly. “You say you have been in a hole at the bottom of the ground for the last eighty years; well, I have barely fared better. But... ah! This is not a conversation for the public rooms like this.” He bowed to Louise, a gesture which had him fold impossibly at the waist until his forehead was momentarily pressed against his shins, before he rose again.  
  
“My dark lady,” he said, graciously, “I must apologise with utmost sincerity for my most terrible doings in not recognising your power here, and assuming that you were Karin of the Heavy Wind using the Rite of the Tiger-in-Palm to come in most cunning disguise.”  
  
“Uh,” said Louise, who was not sure what else she should say.  
  
“Please, come with me; I feel we should talk in a more suitable place,” he added. “Gnarl, you old goblin, I hear you have been putting out some _petit_ feelers, looking for my services in particular, and that means I believe we can make a... how shall we say it, _deal_.”  
  
“ _That is the intention,_ ” the elderly minion said, as Louise followed the man – the demon – down to another doorway, and down a second flight of stairs which left her with the nauseating feeling that she had been walking on the spot, unmoving even as she descended.  
  
The pair of them emerged into a room much like the one they had just left. Much like, but not identical. For the light was even redder here, and the smoke was thicker. There were windows mounted in the walls, and through it fires could be seen burning and the movement of half-seen figures.  
  
But the main difference was in the clientèle. In the last room, there had been a disreputable bunch of hard-faced men, armed women, mysterious strangers in black robes sitting in the corner of the room, and other such individuals who contribute mightily to society in various ways – mostly in the fields of acts of premeditated crime, conspiracy, and looting the hoards of dragons. In _this_ place, the individuals were of a rather more demonic nature, although otherwise fairly similar. Busty horned women festooned in pistols played dice games against small imps who snorted lines of blackpowder, while a winged man with blue-black skin juggled eyeballs on stage.  
  
Everywhere, there was the chatter and hiss and shriek of voices raised in conversation and raucous laughter. A few denizens turned to stare at the black-robed figure with the glowing eyes who had just entered, but Louise did not appear to be sufficiently interesting or unusual to keep them from their entertainment.  
  
“Oh,” Louise said, faintly. The entire scene looked like an instructional artwork of the fate of sinners after death, and... she hastily patted herself to check for any puncture wounds that she may or may not have acquired on her trip here, because it would be just her luck that someone had actually murdered her and this was where she ended up.  
  
“Ah! Mi mademoiselle!” one of the horned servers said, bouncing up to Scarron. “Welcome back! And who is this Evil-eyed lady you have with you? A first time guest? How wonderful!”  
  
“I know, I know darling,” the man replied, with an extravagant air-kiss. Scarron took Louise’s arm in the manner of the court. “Welcome to the Abyssal branch of the Charming Fairies Inn,” he said, smiling a smile which nearly linked ear to ear. “A friend of Gnarl is always a friend here; I will have to make sure you get a membership pass. But, come, come! We must drink, and then get down to business! In harsh times like this, with the crown princess arrested and the Council having assumed the regency in the Queen's distress, there is always a chance for Evil to make a profit!”  
  
Louise paused. Blinked. Blinked again.  
  
"Wait. What?"  
  
Scarron's eyebrows raised. "You have not heard? Where have you been for the last two months, at the bottom of a hole in the ground?"  
  
"Yes!"


	7. The Same Thing We Do Every Night 2-3

_“Fear is the only ethical method of social control. Take this village. Because I executed every man and woman over the age of thirty by impaling them on giant spikes, made the survivors drink the blood of their parents, and forbade anyone from taking down the corpses on pain of pain followed by eventual death, they fear me and fear for their souls. Hence, they will not rise up against me, because they know I will do worse things to them if they ignore my gentle warning. It’s kinder like that, because if they rebelled I’d have to execute them all, slowly and painfully over the course of several weeks. But I do sometimes think I am a trifle soft-hearted._  
  
–  Louis de la Vallière, the Bloody Duke

* * *

  
“It all began two months ago,” Scarron said, settling down in an extremely plush chair in one of the private rooms. Louise perched on the edge of her chair; she did not feel quite comfortable on it. It was warm, and she was fairly sure that it was breathing. The man crossed one leg over the other at an angle which would have had a human male talking in a high pitched voice, and propped his chin on his hands. Unfolding behind him was a pair of wings, blue-black, which Louise tried to pretend was just shadows on the wall.  
  
“ _Wait a moment, let me just..._ ” there was a thump, and Gnarl’s image, wavery and coloured in shades of blue appeared beside Louise, floating slightly above the ground. “ _See! Good as new once you wiped the mould off the old crystal ball. Can you see me?_ ”  
  
Scarron beamed. “Oh, _oui_ , you old sheep-botherer,” he beamed. “You haven’t aged a day! Well, maybe a few days; the beard looks a little longer.” The incubi became more serious. “You know about the Albionese Civil War, of course?” he asked rhetorically.  
  
“Of course,” Louise said, answering anyway. “I was only… only out of contact for three months, after all.”  
  
“Ah, good, good! Well, the Republicans were victorious. The king of Albion and the Prince Wales are dead; the Princess Hibernia is said to have fled to Germania, but since she’s only nine not much will come of that for a while. But that is not what matters. For shock! Scandal! Infamy!”  
  
“What?” Louise asked, getting slightly annoyed.  
  
“Well, it emerged that Princess Henrietta had already pledged herself to the Prince Wales, and had sent men to recover her lover to safety in Tristain! Promised him her hand, and sworn sacred oaths to God and the Founder to that end! Scandal and infamy indeed, for that fact emerged after a marriage treaty had already been signed with Germania!”  
  
Oh.  
  
“Um,” said Louise, blushing faintly. Oh. Oh. Um. If that had been… so that had… and then that… add up the dates… yes. Um. Oh dear. She was a _little_ bit responsible for all of this happening because she had been the one who had been covering for Henrietta at that grand party to let her friend sneak away for some… kind of secret meeting. Multiple times. At night. And the princess had come back rather mussed and once with her dress on back to front and soaking wet. She had _said_ she had been swimming, but...  
  
Oh dear.  
  
“Henrietta,” she whispered sadly, already seeing where this was going.  
  
“ _Hmm,_ ” Gnarl mused, “ _she is precocious. Two husbands by that age already. Mind you, she’s descended from Queen Isabelle III, who would be her… what, her great-great-great grandmother? Or possibly great-great-great-great. I lose track of the years, sometimes. Either way, she used to entertain guests while in her bath of mare’s milk and dabbled in demonology. Remember her, S’kareryeon?_ ”  
  
The incubus smirked. “Oh yes, she was a precocious little girl. Why, she first summoned me when she was only fifteen, and was very disappointed to find that I wasn’t interested in women. She was sixteen when she had succubi murder her older sister and parents. It was _très_ disappointing when her son locked her up and exorcised her magic, but those were a good twenty years for us. Good times, good times; didn’t your overlord manage to conquer a fair amount of the north then?”  
  
“ _Yes, those were the days,_ ” Gnarl agreed.  
  
The conversation was briefly interrupted as a busty woman with horns and wings and about three handkerchief’s worth of fabric on delivered the drinks. “Here you are, mi mademoiselle,” she said, bowing, before walking back out, swinging her hips.  
  
Louise took a sip, and spluttered at the mouth-burningly strong alcohol. She tried to conceal the fact that she spat it back into the mug, because she was fairly sure she could get tipsy from a few mouthfuls of this thing served in pints. “I don’t care about those days!” she declared, to conceal. “Stop reminiscing and tell me what’s actually happening!”  
  
“Oooh, listen to the temper on her!” Scarron said approvingly. “She’s a fierce one, Gnarl, though I suppose that is to be expected of a de la Vallière. Oh well.” Scarron smoothed back his moustache. “Well, once that news was out, things were all a mess. The Germanians were furious, of course. They’d been made into fools. And the Church wasn’t happy either. So one thing led to another, and they tried and convicted the crown princess of the venal crimes of bigamy and adultery.”  
  
Louise swallowed. “They… they can’t and… no.”  
  
“Oh, but they can!” Scarron said gleefully. “She is merely the crown princess, not the queen, and her mother did not act to stop it; tales in the palace say that she is both furious and distraught. She was guilty, after all, by her own confession of _pacta sunt servanda_ bigamy for she was promised by sacred oaths to two men at once. And as for the adultery… well, she could not prove that she had _not_ consummated her relationship with the Prince Wales, and the presumption exists and has always existed that a marriage is consumed unless the bride can prove otherwise, and thus – since she and the Prince Wales are known to have met at least once when the Germanian marriage negotiations were in progress – adultery was added to her sins.” The incubus sniffed. “It’s very silly, of course,” he added.  
  
“Of course it is!” Louise exploded.  
  
“I know! Adultery is barely a sin, and I should know. Sometimes, if it’s done with permission it doesn’t tarnish the soul at all, which makes it worthless for vice and damnation.”  
  
Louise stared for a moment, and mentally recalibrated to what manner of being she was dealing with. Well, not dealing-dealing, because it was not allowed to consort with demons, but which she was… yes, merely getting information from and then Gnarl would do the actual dealing. Yes. That was it. The circuitous mental logic took the wind from her sails and stopped her from exploding at Scarron, and she took a deep breath, and forced herself to be calm. Settling back down, she crossed her arms on her lap. “So… so they convicted her of bigamy and adultery,” she said, softly, the tension in her voice forced down. “But didn’t Cardinal Mazarin have something to say about that?”  
  
Scarron shifted slightly on his seat, his breaches squeaking. “Cardinal Mazarin has been thrown into the deepest darkest dungeons for treason, when it came to light that he had been trying to marry the princess to the emperor of Germania for personal gain – they say he had been getting thousands of ecús in bribes! Which,” the incubus added darkly, “pleases me greatly. That old fool deserves to rot in there, for what he did to me and the many times he thwarted me, oh _oui_. Queen Marienne wasn’t exactly the most capable ruler before, if you excuse me saying so…”  
  
It was true, Louise did have to admit; the queen had fallen apart at the prince consort’s death. Everyone said that.  
  
“… but now they’re saying that she’s gone mad from the stress; that she spends all the days talking to her husband and berating her ‘useless feckless daughter’. So the Council collectively has the regency, ruling in the Queen’s name until she recovers. Apparently they are trying to find a new husband for her, anyone who could sire a child on her, because with this shadow over her it is inconceivable that the princess take the throne and... well, the succession is unclear, but it is possible that King Joseph of Gallia might be the next-in-line by some reckonings. They have made peace with the Albionese new government, and have raised taxes to pay compensation to Germania for the deeds of the princess.”  
  
“The Council,” said Louise, voice low and flat. “Who is on it?”  
  
The man rose, and recovered four sketches from a drawer. Shuffling them in his hands, he laid them out before her. “ _Un_. Alexander Nicholas de Mott, the comte de Mott. He is… an amusing man,” Scarron said with a devilish grin. “He and I have had certain dealings in the past, although he thought I was merely a man. He is a man of great appetites, great passions, and really great parties. I do believe the other members of the Council hold him in contempt, but he is popular among the nobility, and his fetes, pageants, and other little indulgences also win him support among the populace. He is confident, gregarious, and a wonderful lover.”  
  
Louise blanched at the images that Scarron was bringing to mind, and tried not to gag. “I see,” she said. “I think… yes, mother commented that she thought he was a useless fop who couldn’t… couldn’t tie his own breeches without help,” she corrected. That hadn’t been precisely what her mother had said about him, and if she had known her daughter was listening she probably would not have used the language she had used.  
  
“Fop? Why, certainly. Fops, as you put it, have the best fashion sense. But useless?” Scarron’s hand went to his mouth. “Oh my, no. He is a skilled mage, and he is more than anything else likeable. That much is needed to counter some of the others; for example, _deux_. Françoise Athénaïs de Mortemart, marquise of Montespan. She…”  
  
“I vaguely know her,” Louise said. “My oldest sister is a friend of hers. Well, they go to the same readings, and once fought a duel over a theory. Well, more than one duel, actually. That’s about as close as Eleanore gets to ‘friend’.”  
  
“Mmm, _oui, oui_. She is a great beauty of the realm, but more than anything she is clever… perhaps too clever. They call her ‘the Alabaster’, and that describes how she looks and how she acts, too. She has taken over the treasury and has begun to rework the tax code; she is calm, logical, precise and cold. They say she makes those people who do not do as she orders to her standards into a living hell. Which is ridiculous,” the incubus said, leaning back, “because living hells are not a bad thing.” He shrugged. “She controls the money, and through it she controls the bureaucracy. And many other things too.”  
  
“ _Oh, I like her,_ ” commented Gnarl. “ _Beautiful, and a love for the bureaucratic arts? I think I might rather like to reform her tax code and extend a mandate for major infrastructural projects which ease the delivery of goods to urban populations with her. And cover her in melted chocolate._ ”  
  
Louise opened her mouth. Louise closed her mouth. Louise opened her mouth. Louise closed her mouth. “Moving on,” she managed hastily, “… really, really far on, who’s the third?”  
  
Scarron leaned back. “ _Trois_? That would be Armand Jean du Plessis, duke de Richelieu.”  
  
Realisation dawned. “Oh, of course,” said Louise bitterly. “The Chief Justice of the courts. Of course he would have to be in on this. No doubt he was the one who issued the charges against Henri… against the princess. Which means that any judge he’s personally appointed since… Founder, he’s been serving for decades, most of the judges and magistrates in the kingdom are probably in his pocket, or at the very least are loyal to him. He gives everything a nice clean shine of legality,” she said, sneering. “All nice and… Good.”  
  
Beside her, the flickering blue image of Gnarl smirked. “ _Oh, indeed,_ ” he said, smiling like a cat who had just got not only the cream, but everyone’s else’s cream as well. “ _That is what Good does, no?_ ”  
  
“Well, I can’t feel _too_ ill-inclined towards him,” Scarron said idly, “because he did throw Cardinal Mazarin in the deepest, darkest jail he could find.”  
  
“Ambitious, domineering, pushy, energetic,” the pink-haired girl said darkly, ignoring the other two. “Yes, it all fits. I wonder if he even had to be bribed to do this, or whether he did it all on his own?” Shaking her head, she looked down at the sketches for the first time, paying proper attention in the dim light of the Charming Fairies Inn. And the fourth was… oh no.  
  
“ _Oui_ , the last is _quatre_. And that is Jean-Jacques de Wardes, viscount de Vajours.”  
  
“My fiancé,” Louise said, her world crumbling around her.  
  
Scarron coughed. “Well, I do believe that the engagement was called off after you were thought to be dead,” he pointed out. “Your horse was found, exhausted and injured, wandering in the wilds of the north. There was no sign of you.” He shrugged. “Ah, well. _Oui_ , yes, the knight-captain of the Griffin Knights, and now the knight-general of all three orders. He says that he was so overcome by the discovery that he had been duped into aiding the princess in her adultery and bigamy that he had to, in the name of his honour, take the information straight to the duke de Richelieu. As an honourable man, you understand.” The dark-haired man had a twist of amused sarcasm in his voice. “Well, this ‘honourable man’ is proud, lonesome, and self-occupied. In some ways, he is the one I cannot get a handle on; all the others have things that they want. I cannot discover what he wants, though he diverts men of the military towards some goal that I know not.”  
  
“This can’t be true,” Louise whispered. “And… I’m dead.” She bit her lip. “Cattleya must feel terrible,” she said, sadly. “I should let her know… but no, I… argh.” She thumped her chair, and it yelped in pain, prompting her to squeak in surprise. “Maybe it is a question of honour for him,” she said, “but… that doesn’t make it acceptable! Even if it was, he should not be helping such… such _terrible_ people!”  
  
“They say he shares the bed of the Madame de Montespan,” Scarron added helpfully.  
  
“How dare he!” Louise screamed, prompting the incubus to flinch and his wings to instinctively go to block. “How _dare_ he! He should still be mourning me! His fiancé is dead in tragic circumstances… he shouldn’t be jumping into some cheap tart’s bed! How very _dare_ he! And… that, outside of marriage, when he’s just had Henrietta arrested for… that lying, hypocritical, cowardly, dishonourable, ill-bred, piggish, insensitive, cheating, unfaithful, terrible, horrible, mean, stupid _dog!_ ” Eyes ablaze, her hair blowing in an unseen gale, she panted with her hands held in front of her as if she was throttling a man seen only in her mind's eye – which happened to be true. “He is going to _pay_ for this! And so is she!”

* * *

  
  
In the streets of Bruxelles, the band of five perfectly normal human children were doing perfectly normal things like casually stealing laundry, picking pockets, and picking up dog excrement off the floor and throwing it at passing carriages. The latter activity proved so popular that actually-real-human children joined in, and in the resulting chaos the disguised minions got bored and continued on their mission, following the path of the green among their number who sniffed constantly.  
  
“Here!” it announced, pointing up at a large stone waterfront building.  
  
Maggat shot a doubtful look at Fettid; a look shared by the other minions apart from Igni, who was picking bird muck off a windowsill and carefully putting it in a pouch on his belt. “Is it just because place is next to river?” he asked. “Because Scyl not want to have to need to bring you back to life again. Think there some blue life force in green that make you. You no can swim, Fettid.”  
  
“Yeah,” Maximilian agreed. “Fettid pretty dumb sometimes. Not as dumb as goblin, but pretty close.”  
  
“Listen, I smells it,” the beleaguered green hissed. He jabbed a finger at his nose. “You wanna argue with this nose? Nose better at smelling than you.”  
  
“You is pretty smelly,” Scyl commented, adjusting his wimple. “Maybes we should try it, Maggat. What’s the worst that can happen?”  
  
Maggat glared at the blue. “We all get killed by angry humans, and you not able to get away to sneak back and bring us back from dead place and so we have to be dead forever? Also, Overlady or Gnarl give us bollocking when they find out. ‘Specially Gnarl.”  
  
“Well, yes,” Scyl admitted, “but what else bad?”  
  
“Listens,” Fettid said, sniffing again, “I can smells it clear as nose on face. Building stinks of Evil, just like Igni stinks of burny things. Evil and Abyss and humie sweaty and drinkies and hornies and hair and fire and smoke and…”  
  
Maximilian groaned, slapping a four-digitted hand into his forehead. “Stupid! Why you not say it smells of hornies! Hornies are what we is looking for, because Gnarl’s friend is a hornie! Argh! You as dumb as humie who cannot speak!”  
  
“Are humies what cannot speak stupid?” Igni asked.  
  
The brown shook his head. “No, see-see, because word ‘dumb’ actually mean…”  
  
He was slapped over the back of the head by Maggat. “You is getting all poet-ical on us again, Maxy,” the larger minion said threateningly, “so I think it be time for you to be shutting up again. And for us to be going into building and having drinkies, while Fettid sees where the hornies and the Overlady be.”

* * *

  
  
“Does this usually go on long?” Scarron whispered to Gnarl, both eyes locked on the furious overlady who was building increasingly long chains of bowdlerised profanity to describe her former fiancé. “You say she’s only been doing this for a few months? Oh my, she has a good grasp on the basics of ranting! I haven’t heard something like this in years.”  
  
“ _Oh, she usually rants for a while, and then goes to sulk,_ ” Gnarl observed. “ _She has so much Evil in her heritage that it’s not much of a surprise that she has a natural flair. Now, anyway, S’kareryeon, perhaps we should get back to business._ ”  
  
The incubus settled back down, being careful to try to keep away from Louise’s line of sight. “Oh, certainly _mon ami_ ,” he said. “I suppose it is information you will be wanting to buy, at the usual rates. Because we are old friends and because I expect repeat custom from you, I will give those basic facts about the recent events for free; it would not do me well to sour you by making you pay for things you could have picked up off the street.”  
  
“ _You’re a temporarily useful ally, S’kareryeon,_ ” Gnarl said.  
  
“Oh, you. You charmer.”  
  
“ _Mmm. Well, there are several things. There are some missing artefacts from the tower, and I suspect they have passed through your fingers, but they are lower priority. There are two important things. Firstly, that disgusting vampire managed to damage the tower heart, and bits have been chipped from it._ ”  
  
Scarron’s hand went to his mouth. “ _Zut ahors!_ Is it…”  
  
“ _It’s stable,_ ” Gnarl reassured him, “ _and not about to explode. Just. But it is damaged, and cannot do many of the things it should be able to. I estimate that perhaps three to four separate fragments have been chipped off. It is barely stable._ ”  
  
The man pursed his lips. “For this, I will give you a discount if I hear of such things,” he declared. “An explosion of raw magic wiping out northern Tristain if some idiotic Hero decides to attack the heart with a pick-axe and damages it further is not something which will serve my interests, so if I tell you of such things, I will expect you to act quickly to recover it.”  
  
Gnarl grinned. “ _I can promise you that much_ ,” he agreed. “ _And the other thing? That bloody vampire pawned pretty much all the armour for the overlady. She cannot rampage across the land like she is – at best, she can sneak around and be a sinister presence on the land in that robe. And that is not enough. Especially when she so clearly wants to be the rampaging kind of overlady, not the subtle corrupter type. We therefore need to commission a new set of armour, based to be compatible with the gauntlet._ ”  
  
“Which gauntlet is she using?” Scarron asked. “The Xcythine Talon? The Oasaka Claw? The…”  
  
“ _The Gauntlet._ ”  
  
“The… oh my.” Scarron shot a glance at Louise, who by now had stopped shouting and was instead rhythmically balling and unballing her fists, muttering to herself. “There is a person I know,” he said, quickly, “and she would be overjoyed to work on such a project. She has always wanted something grand to work on with her hobby, but alas, the most she has been able to get in commissions is a breastplate or so, most of the rest being jewellery.”  
  
“ _I expect you’ll want a commission,_ ” Gnarl said cynically.  
  
“I think I’ll waive this, just this once,” Scarron said, rising and unfolding his wings. “For one, I’ll see whatever you pay myself. And for two, I do like to keep my little girl happy.” He paused. “But don’t expect this treatment normally,” he added. “We can take your overlady to be fitted, and then you and I… well, we can get reacquainted properly, eh?”  
  
“ _And you might even explain what you’re doing here, running a bar and trading in information rather than ruling over vast domains of the Abyss._ ”  
  
The man pouted. “Don’t push your luck that hard,” he warned. "At least buy me a drink first.


	8. The Same Thing We Do Every Night 2-4

_“Oooh no, you can’t trust no elves never, see. They be strange and terrible beasties, with ‘orribly wicked ways. They smell of tar pits, ‘ave ‘eads shaped like mushrooms no less, an’ are scared of garlic. That’s why I al’ays eats garlic for moi lunch; so’s them bloody elves don’t come an’ steal moi ‘orses. I didn’t do so for one day, an’ look what ‘appened. It was elves what set moi ‘erd of ‘orses on fire with their evil fire ray from the sky, an’ then they paid goblings to steal moi chickens and beat me up!”_  
  
–  Ol’ Phil, uneducated horse herder

* * *

 

  
Louise de la Vallière climbed and climbed a long, spiralling staircase in the depths of the Abyss. Was she going up? Was she going down? Most of the time she felt she was ascending, but there were moments when she wasn’t so sure. Out the windows, she could see a smoke-choked landscape, fires burning in the distance. On the occasions she was close to the ground, she could see demons outside, choking in the fumes.  
  
She followed the staircase to the end, though, as she had been instructed by Scarron, and rapped on the brass-bound door. “Come in,” a voice called out.  
  
It didn’t sound... demonic. That was probably a reassurance.  
  
The room past the door was very normal, all things considered. One did not expect a room which actually looked remarkably like Eleanore’s back at the estate, what with papers scattered over the surfaces and pinned up on the walls, but that was what it was. And the black basalt and brass themes were somewhat broken up by the fact that the walls had been whitewashed, and there were watercolours of kittens and ponies and the like on the walls.  
  
Sitting on the chair in the room was quite possibly the most handsome man Louise had ever seen in her life. His long black hair and the way it matched his slightly pointy chin made her feel weak at the knees. Her mouth felt as dry as the heights of summer as she stared him up and down, her eyes picking out his wide hips, waist, generous bosom and...  
  
Wait. Wait just a moment.  
  
Louise slapped herself in the head with her ungauntleted hand, and squinted at the vision of manliness, who opened his mouth and spoke. And what he said was this;  
  
“Oh, _bugger_. Did I leave it on again?”  
  
There was a moment of uncertainty, and then, without changing in appearance at all, he was suddenly clearly and obviously female. She rose, and brushed some crumbs off her skirt. “Sorry,” she apologised again, “am I running late again? Is it my turn for a shift in the aboveworld? I thought I didn’t have any barmaid things booked today!” As she said that, a tiny stubby pair of horns retracted into her forehead, and the four atrophied bat-like wings in her back folded back in.  
  
“What the hell was that?” Louise blurted out, eyes wide.  
  
“... okay, you’re not from Dad if you don’t know about the thing, so... uh. Um.” The dark-haired girl massaged her neck. She looked to be perhaps twenty; curvy and a little plump, which was enough to give her quite a bust, with her hair crudely thrown back in a hair band. “Half-incubus. Sometimes happens when I’m focussing really hard on something. I end up all attractive. It’s bloody inconvenient.”  
  
“But...” Louise wetted her lips. “You were... I was... it was all manly and...”  
  
“No,” she said with the weary tone of someone who had to explain this kind of thing frequently, “As I said, I’m half-incubus. Not succubus.”  
  
“But…”  
  
“And _yes_ , I’m a girl.” The woman sighed. “You have no idea how hard it makes finding a boyfriend when you’re radiating raw masculine sex appeal. Girls stare at you slack-jawed and boys feel threatened. Bloody half-succubi have it easy… well, at least the girl ones.” She shook her head. “But enough about that. Who are you, and why are you in my room?”  
  
“Scarron... your father said that you did armour and... I’m a new Overlady and...” oh Founder drat it, her tongue was tying itself in knots and she was making a fool of herself, drat, drat, drat. She tried again. “I wish to commission a set of armour from you.”  
  
“Really?” the other girl asked, wide-eyed and remarkably enthusiastic. “Really really? I’m Jessica, by the way! Really?”  
  
Louise looked around. That sounded... uh, a little too keen. “Yes?” she hazarded.  
  
Jessica turned around, and made her way over to a desk covered in drawings. Louise’s eyes boggled as she saw the contents of some of the sketches, which suggested either a fevered and perverted imagination obsessed with dark fantasies, or that the girl had been using some of the demons downstairs as models for improving her drawing skills. “Clearly, as this is my first proper commission of armour, we should do this from scratch!” Jessica announced happily. “Yes! This is my chance to make a name for myself. If an Overlady conquers a nation wearing my armour, that’s the kind of thing which really establishes your brand! Even if you fail, as long as you make plenty of mess doing so your image – and thus my work – will go down in history! Time to show all those soulless infernal armouries who didn’t want a half-breed designer what they were missing out on!”

* * *

 

  
  
The bar of the above-ground, non-Abyssal part of the Charming Fairies Inn was heaving. The normal crowd of misfits, mercenaries and malcontents were being served by women in low-cut dresses and men in tight breeches. Unusually, there was a table of perfectly ordinary children here, ordering drinks. It was felt that it was probably better for the children to be drinking in here where responsible adults could keep an eye on them. After all, no one wanted drunken children roaming the streets. The little buggers were enough of a pain when sober.  
  
As one, the minions downed their beers, and sighed in relief. After much discussion, they had established that they were here incognito, and as the cognito they were wearing was the kind of thing that someone who would pay for beer wore, they had done so. There had been a minor ethical question raised by Fettid, who queried if they were breaking the Minion’s Code by paying for something, but careful deliberation had decided that as long as they stole enough to make up for the shortfall before they left, they weren’t doing anything Right.  
  
It would be best if they stole the money they’d paid back naturally, but this was a demon-run bar, and demons tended to be unfriendly to acts of ethical plundering. And hard to kill when there were only five of you, which was really the determining factor in the moral calculus.  
  
Because they were not meant to be fighting, and were just waiting for a chance to help the mistress, therefore, they went and had a second round of drinks.  
  
“A hero!” the minstrel sang, strumming his instrument. “Yes, here I am, to tell you the tale of a hero!”  
  
All around, there was a mild shift in attention, as people began to listen for a lack of anything better to do. “Booooring,” whined Fettid, to which Maximilian replied by smacking him over the back of the head.  
  
“Oh, our story starts with a hero,  
A hero young and brave,  
Bored, unloved, alone,  
Adventure he did crave!  
  
One day, when he was walking,  
A terrible thief came by,  
‘I’m just an innocent secretary and this golem is here to help me with paperwork,’ said she,  
He knew it was a lie!”  
  
There was a grating of teeth from the direction of Maximilian, at the mutilation of the song’s meter.  
  
“‘You lie’ said he, ‘I’ll strike you down’,  
The watchers prepared to lament,  
Little did they know that he was going to win,  
That brave hero, Guiche de Gramont!  
  
He was a brave young hero,  
A cunning plan he planned,  
Against a golem he’d need all his skill,  
So he started by drawing his wand  
  
And then our brave...”  
  
“Oi!” a voice yelled from the audience. It was revealed to come from a small, smelly tatterdemalion child, holding a club. “You is a terrible poet! Why you got so many different silly-balls on each line, huh? Too stoopid to work out the right number. And... and you rhymed ‘lament’ with ‘Gramont’, you hack! Those words not rhyme!”  
  
Maggat sunk his face into both hands. “Ach,” he muttered. “And this is why Maxy not go into bars.” He perked up. “Oh well, fight time soon. Igni, I think we get in trouble if we is burning things, because this is horny bar. If Gnarl find out, he do terrible things to us. So smashy weapons only. And no stabby or poison, Fettid, got it?” He looked around, trying to see the green, who had vanished. “We is going to get in so much trouble for this,” he muttered, just as Maximilian leapt at the ill-fated – and also just-not-that-good – bard and started beating him around the head with his club.  
  
Disappointingly, the audience appeared to be of the opinion that the small smelly child had a good point, and this was much more amusing than listening to a hack bard sing about the exploits of Guiche de Gramont. After all, everyone had heard about how he had stopped Foquet of the Crumbling Dirt repeatedly since it had happened almost three months ago. ‘Get some new material’ was the general consensus; after all, it wasn’t as if that was the only thing he had done since then.  
  
And this happy state of affairs lasted until Fettid stabbed one of the nobles and stole his wandsword, at which point a bar brawl started in earnest.

* * *

  
  
“This?”  
  
“Too much exposed flesh.”  
  
“How about this?”  
  
“I can’t just wear a robe open at the front like that with no corset underneath!”  
  
“Hmm. This?”  
  
“I do like the heels… but I think those spikes mean I wouldn’t even be able to sit down without cutting myself. And once again, too much exposed flesh. And sharp bits.”  
  
“Well, how about this?”  
  
“Half-naked. No way. I need armour on more than my arms, shins and... um, certain parts of my torso. No.”  
  
“This?”  
  
“ _Two-thirds_ naked. Doubly no.”  
  
“This?”  
  
Louise recoiled, covering her eyes. “Put some clothes on!” she shrieked, staring away from the half-incubus while blushing furiously.  
  
Jessica pouted. “You’re no fun,” she accused, the shadows rolling back up her to solidify into a plain green dress. “Okay, okay, you can look again. I only did that because you’re saying ‘no’ to everything I suggest.”  
  
“Everything you suggest is... is highly improper,” Louise managed, still blushing furiously. “I can’t wear that kind of thing. I just _can’t_. Even if it was acceptable... and it’s not... I... I don’t have the figure for it, okay?” she said weakly. “You’re just flaunting it by... by modelling illusion things like that. Catt... my older sister could pull it off, if she wouldn’t be even more embarrassed by it than me. She’s curvy. I’m not, and... and there’s no need to rub it in! I... I just haven’t had my growth spurt yet!”  
  
Jessica threw her hands up and marched back over to her desk full of sketches. Rummaging through it, she recovered some books from under the papers. Louise winced to see the state of the spines of the tomes; they were nearly ruined from the way they had been treated. The dark-haired girl laid them down, and beckoned Louise over. “But look,” she objected, “I’ve just been using classical reference sources as inspiration. Look... that one with the heels was worn by Lady Asamareth, who raised the dead all over Gallia around six hundred years ago. And the one you called ‘half-naked’ was the garb of the Anti-Popess Luxuira. And...”  
  
“Wait a moment,” Louise said slowly, staring down at the book. “Go back a page.” She stared down at the figure there. It was probably a man from the build, but he was so completely wrapped in plate armour that it was possible that it could have been a muscular flat-chested woman. Nothing could be seen of his face at all, apart from the sinister burning eyes staring out of the deep shadows of his helmet. He held two brutal maces, each with heads shaped like a dragon’s. Over the top of that was thrown a bear’s skin.  
  
“Who is _he_?” she asked breathily.  
  
Jessica scanned her eyes over the page. “Uh... William the Bloody. Minor Albionese figure of Evil, fallen knight,” she traced her finger down the page, “vanished in mysterious circumstances when owing money to some vampires.”  
  
“Oh, I like that,” Louise said. “Not the vampires bit, but the look. Those spikes. That,” she jabbed her finger at the page, “that is what all your women’s things are not covering. Literally, in most cases! But that? That is armour for scaring people and protecting you! That is something that is sinister and dark and... and looks good!”  
  
The dark-haired girl stared at her blankly. “No it doesn’t. It doesn’t show off your figure at all.”  
  
“I don’t have a figure!” Louise growled, and then coughed. “Yet. I will. And...” she paused, flicking through the book. “Yes! Here! Look at this one, with the blank mask and that two-handed sword and the mix of leather and plate! He’s far better than...” she turned a few pages, “... yes, she’s using exactly the same sword, but she feels compelled t-to only cover half her face, and not wear anything on her l-legs!”  
  
“But you have nice legs,” Jessica said, motioning with sketches in hand. “Your legs are... what’s the word? Svelte? Does that mean what I think it means? And look, if we go for a Westalphazza style of boot, the eye is naturally drawn all the way up. I really like that look. It’s the perfect way to show them off.”  
  
“I’m fond of them! I don’t want them to be burned when someone throws fire at me, or when... when shrapnel from a cannonball or something bounces along!” Louise said, folding her arms. “And look at that thing! I’d be _freezing_ wearing that! No wonder you can see her... um... well, she’s certainly very cold dressed like that! I refuse!”  
  
She took a deep breath. There was a plan forming in the back of her head. A slightly naughty plan, one which some people might even call Evil, but it seemed to be the best way ahead. And for it, she needed armour which would leave her unrecognisable.  
  
Louise squared her jaw. “I am going to be going up against a council of traitors and treasonous unfaithful scum-licking ex-fiancé dogs. I _want_ them to be scared of me. I want them to see a scary dark lady who is going to crush them beneath her m-metal clad boots. Not someone that they... they think l-lusty thoughts about!”  
  
And now Jessica’s lower lip was wobbling slightly, the constant criticism clearly getting to the older girl. Louise let out her breath slowly.  
  
“Look,” she said, more gently. “Those drawings of dresses and the like are... are nice, even if they’re a bit,” she coughed, “adventurous. And I don’t have many spare dresses right now that fit, so once I have the armour, we can talk about things for me to wear when I’m not wearing armour... because Founder knows, I won’t want to wear it all the time. In fact,” she added, “I’ll certainly need more dresses, because... well, I can’t sew,” yes, that was it, make a guarded confession, “and have you ever seen minions try to stitch? They’re _horrible_. They’ll sew both arms together and then tear new holes, given even the slightest chance.”  
  
Despite herself, Jessica giggled, perking up as she spread her papers out again and picked up a fresh charcoal. “Right,” the older girl said, cracking her knuckles. “Yes! That’s it! I _have_ been too tied up in the old moribund ways of the old-school fashion houses! I’ll show them! I’ll take the classically masculine imagery and give it a new neo-gothic female touch! I’ll blend the old fashioned Steel-and-Blood school with new post-Imperial tendencies!”  
  
“Um,” said Louise, who understood most of the words in the other girl’s sentence when taken in isolation, but sort of lost track of them when combined. She decided to press on. “After all,” she added, “Karin of the Heavy Wind was clearly the greatest Hero of the last generation by a long, long, long way, so... um, she wore full plate, and why not l-look to her for inspiration? For how you can armour someone without... um, forgetting to put armour on?”  
  
“A classic! Post-feudal fallen knights! Yes! An Overlady for a new era, an era of blackpowder and bloody conquest!” Jessica declared, charcoal scratching away against parchment like a demented and highly enthusiastic spider.  
  
“... you did get that I liked the heels from that earlier one?”  
  
“Yep! And it’ll play with the feminine themes, the clear statement that ‘ _No, I’m not some half-succubi bitch who can get boyfriends by blinking my stupidly long eyelashes at people, so I have instead enough raw power to burn your face off and am not to be messed with_ ’. Assertive gynomagacracy, the power to _take_ what you want rather than relying on some little idiot who falls for the first blonde-haired horned tart who waltzes up when the two of you had something which was going pretty well, all things considered! It’ll look _hellishly_.” She paused. “Although I will need to put some enchantments in them to help with the balance which... yes, that means... yes!”  
  
Louise sighed, and went to look for somewhere to sit. This was going to take a while, she just knew, and so she might as well use the chance to put her own thoughts in order.

* * *

  
  
Igni went from groaning body to body, emptying their purses. His red-skinned hand closed on a holstered pistol, and his eyes lit up. And so did the runes on the back of his left hand. “Igni _likes_ ,” he all but drooled, hastily grabbing all the powder he could find off the badly beaten man.  
  
Pausing for a moment, the minion looked around the room. There was still fighting going on, but by and large things had settled down into cursing, moaning, and scantily-clad barmaids picking grown men up by their heads and slamming them together.  
  
Igni made a note that they were probably hornies, and therefore to be avoided.  
  
Maggat, of course, was looting, in an even more systematic and efficient manner. He had brought his sack with him, and it was already bulging. Fettid was somewhere – who knew where a green went, except by the smell – and Scyl was up in the rafters, his brand new cloak wrapped dramatically around him. And Maxy...  
  
Maxy had the unfortunate bard by the collar. “Say it!” the brown demanded of the terrified man. “ Say it!”  
  
“I... I... I...”  
  
“Say it proper-like! You wasn’t stammerin’ when you was doing _it!_ ”  
  
“I... I solemnly swear to... to...”  
  
“To never, ever, ever.”  
  
“T-to never, ever, ever... tr-try to rhyme two,” he choked, as the brown tightened his grip, “to rhyme two _or more_ words together which... which don’t actually. Which don’t actually rhyme.”  
  
“And?”  
  
“And... an’ I... I sw-swear that I will... I will... k-keep to the meter of poetry and s-songs!” the man managed, his voice rising in sheer terror. “And that if I break from it, it won’t be because I c-couldn’t be b-bothered to think up an extra verse to get theextrawordsin!”  
  
The minion hit him over the head, and divested him of his purse, his lyre and his jacket in one impossibly smooth motion. Maximilian strummed the lyre, and nodded, once. “Well, I think we is just about done here,” he said, cheerfully. “It Evil day for money and for music.”

* * *

  
  
By now, Louise was standing around in her underthings, incredibly happy that she had made sure to wash everything last night and dry it off with pink-burning fire. The scorch marks hardly showed. Jessica was making sketches of her, trying various configurations from the books. Louise was unsure of how things were turning out, but what she did know is that her arms were feeling sore from being held out like this, and she really hoped the half-incubus could hurry up.  
  
Eventually, she was nodded at, the dark-haired girl beaming.  
  
“Is it done?” Louise asked, hopefully.  
  
Jessica looked shocked. “No, of course not,” she said. “That was me getting a basic profile of you and your shape and... you know, stuff. Now,” she reached for thinner paper on her desk, “now I actually begin drawing the armour models. Oh, and don’t really bother putting your clothes back on, because once I’ve got the sketches we’re going to have to measure you.”  
  
Louise groaned. At least it was warn here; if she was to be perfectly honest things were probably more pleasant in just her chemise than she had been in the long thick robe. But that wasn’t the point! The point was that she was sitting around in her underthings! Which was not a thing that proper ladies did!”  
  
“There’s a blanket over there if you’re chilly,” Jessica added.  
  
Gratefully, Louise picked it up, and wrapping it tight around her, she shuffled back over to her seat. After a few minutes alternating between looking around the room, looking out into the thick smog outside, and blushing when she saw the sketches pinned up above the other girl’s table, she cleared her throat. “So... um?” she asked. “I don’t hope this is rude, but, I do maybe sort of have to ask... how did you. You know. Um. Come about.”  
  
“Oh, you know how it is,” Jessica said casually, not even looking up.  
  
Louise did not know how it was, and said as much.  
  
“Ah. Okay, well, basically...” Jessica looked up, stretching out her right hand and working her wrist, “like, about sixty years ago the dark lord of the Abyss tried to take over the overworld. You know, portals, ravaging demons, pretty standard. Only, um, the wandering party of Heroes who had just killed the Butcher of Iberia happened to be near one of the first portals, were sucked into the Abyss, then went and killed most of his generals, burned down his citadels, and eventually fought him. He went and bragged how he’d always return, and then they went and bound him into the body of one of their number, who was... like, this wandering archer from the mystic East. So the lord of the Abyss got trapped into a mortal body, with the man still in control, and the invasion just kinda completely failed then. And he married one of the other Heroes, and they settled down in her village.”  
  
“Ah,” Louise said, nodding with a certain degree of understanding. She knew how it was to, for reasons which were not your fault, end up with allegedly-evil power. “So they had children, and there was demonic taint in them, hence your father and you?”  
  
Jessica looked somewhat uncomfortable. “Not exactly,” she said, slowly. “Then, twenty-ish years ago, Dad tried to unite the lands of the Abyss together to try another invasion and free his father, and... uh, got thrashed. And my mother, who was the niece of the original Heroes, snuck in to his tower and... well, that’s where I came from. He’s a really good dad,” she hastened to add, “he’s just... well, a bit odd. Oh, and bound by blood to be like that and if he were freed again he would seek to crush the world for the humiliation that it inflicted on him. So that’s a thing to bear in mind.”  
  
She paused.  
  
“But seriously, I couldn’t have asked for a better father. He’s always been really supportive of my ambitions, and I certainly wouldn’t be getting these kinds of opportunities if I was just some peasant girl! I’m much better off than my cousins!”

* * *

  
  
“She... she was dressed like a man at first,” Scarron managed, slumped down with a pile of empty bottles in front of him. Gnarl’s blue image floated by him, trying to look sympathetic rather than gleefully malevolent at the suffering of another. “She seduced me! And then when I was going to slip into something more comfortable, she... she was a thief! She stole my... my two great treasures, from th-th-their place at the base of the Rising Tower. W-without them, I... m-my power w-was gone,” he wailed.  
  
“ _Jewellery has been the downfall of many a great force of Evil,_ ” Gnarl agreed.  
  
Scarron shot him a disgusted look through tearful eyes. “H-how can you s-say that?” he managed, before breaking down again. “W-without my... my preciouses, th-the Rising Tower fell, and has r-remained f-fallen since then. And... and th-then she used one of them, t-to b-become pregnant, and s-so bound me with my own bl-bloodline! Me! Of all people! When I... I went t-to lengths to avoid that kind of thing!”  
  
“ _There, there._ ”  
  
“... and, and then she made me follow h-her back to her hometown while she had the child, and... and when Jessica was five, she r-ran off with some little shiny paladin git, t-taking the remaining precious gem of the Rising Tower with her!” Scarron roared, seizing a full bottle and crushing its neck with his bare hands, drinking from the jagged hole before discarding it. “Leaving me with the child! Who I’m forced by the binding to protect!  
  
“The worst part... the worst part is, Jessica is the bit which makes my... my emasculated slavery even a bit tolerable. And yet she keeps me chained because... because she is my own flesh and blood. I h-hate it, but I can’t hate her. She... she reminds me of my older sister, before my younger sister murdered her. You know Gnarl, I never liked my younger sister. Stupid vapid little giggling pain in the backside who thought being a succubus was all about sex; not like poor S’suzenne. She knew things about... about intellectual temptation and how... how a well-chosen outfit can look better than mere nudity and... and how to have an intelligent conversation about art and the like. I used to... to really like our debates. It’s... it’s funny how much Jessica is like her.” Scarron’s moustache drooped in misery. “Dark gods, I miss her so much.”  
  
Gnarl stared at him, stroking his goatee. “ _Old friend,_ ” he said, “ _things must have been dreadful for you. Why don’t you have another drink, to calm your nerves, and then we can talk about payment for your services?_ ”

* * *

  
Louise had dozed off in the warmth under the blanket, and so it was Jessica’s enthusiastic “I’m done!” which woke her. She opened her eyes to see the other girl holding a series of complicated sketches labelled in some unknown writing system, and blearily rubbed her eyes.  
  
“Eh?” she just about managed. How long had she been asleep? Sleeping rough last night must have taken more out of her than she’d thought.  
  
“I’m done!” the girl repeated, with the same excess enthusiasm. “Look!” Shadows rippled around her, and left standing was...  
  
... oh my, Louise thought, rising to her feet and letting the blanket slip down in her wide-eyed awe. That was astonishing.  
  
Before her stood a robed and armoured figure. The robe was the first thing to catch the eye, and seemed to be based on the black robe she had worn to this meeting. This one, however, was in a deep, bloody crimson. And there were other differences. The robe was merely knee-length and short in the sleeve, well-placed cuts added to prevent it from reducing her ability to run. The hood was full, and cast the face in half-shadow, exposing only the mouth. Leaning in, squinting, Louise realised that somehow, the cut of the robe suggested cleavage that did not exactly exist, playing at the figure underneath. Where she went in, the robe followed closely, but where things went up and down it billowed, in a deception of well-cut fabric.  
  
And rather than exposed flesh under the garment, there was steel. Dull, sullied steel which glinted in the hellish light from the windows. It wrapped every limb tightly, and under the opened robe there was plate which implied figure-hugging while not actually doing so. Even the heels were armoured. With a giggle at the expression on Louise’s face, Jessica threw back the hood, to reveal the helmet underneath. Somehow the shadows clung to it too, still-shrouding half the face in a horned helmet which brought to mind both beasts and crowns.  
  
“I’d recommend red lip-paint if you’re going to wear the helmet like that,” she advised Louise. “You want to bring out the lips here; I only went for woven shadow for the half-helm option, because you wanted to keep some feminine traces, and... uh, well, woven shadow is pretty expensive, you know.”  
  
“It’s... it’s _perfect_ ,” Louise breathed. Before her was a figure of terror, of awe, of dark and imperial majesty. They were female, but they were female in a regal, bloody way.  
  
It... it was like looking at Mother’s dark reflection. And it was wonderful.  
  
With a wave of her hand, Jessica dismissed the illusion, and picked up a tape measure. “Well, now comes the boring part of measurement,” she said with a smug grin. “It’s... it’s really perfect?”  
  
“Yes. Yes it is.”  
  
“Oh, that’s wonderful! This is going to be amazing! I just know it is! And... oh yes, I’ll get your measurements here so we can start talking about dresses too!”  
  
Jessica busied herself with chatter as she began to measure up Louise, jotting down numbers as she went. Louise, for her part, was silent. This armour... it was the last piece she needed. The part she needed for her plan. It would be glorious, it really would.  
  
Step One – build up her forces and gather wealth by attacking the treasonous forces of the Council. Gain a small reputation as a dark evil lord of unknown identity.  
  
Step Two – “kidnap” Princess Henrietta from the palace and confine her to her secret, isolated tower where no-one could possibly find her. Issue ransom notes which demand that the Council surrender to her before she releases Henrietta; naturally, they almost certainly wouldn’t do that. And that way, not only would Henrietta be safe, but she’d also have someone to talk to who wasn’t a minion. Founder, that would be wonderful.  
  
Step Three – Crush the Council-members-who-weren’t-Viscount-Wardes. Slowly or quickly, it didn’t really matter. Whichever was easier.  
  
Step Three-and-a-bit – Spend a long time crushing Wardes for being an unfaithful dog who didn’t even wait a whole season after her ‘death’ before jumping into bed with another woman. Slowly, painfully, and vengefully. Wait, maybe she should also spend longer crushing the Madame de Montespan, because she might have been the one tempting him.  
  
Step Three-and-a-bit-more – Mop up whatever was left of them, and crush anything that she’d missed in earlier bits of Step Three. And do whatever other things were necessary, possibly involving crushing. She’d know when she got to that point.  
  
Step Four – Tread the jewelled thrones of the world beneath her steel-clad heels, seize Bruxelles and raise her banner over the palace, possibly take the chance to attack the foes of her nation under a false identity, et cetera, et cetera.  
  
And then... well. It would be so horrible if this faceless villain controlling all of Tristain was overthrown by one of their prisoners, the brave and valiant Princess Henrietta, who had been taken hostage by him. Such bravery, such heroism to defeat the monster who had killed all the Council in messy and fully-deserved ways would surely forgive any small mistakes she might have made in the past. Especially when her accusers were all dead. And if the princess would also rescue her friend, Louise de la Vallière, who had been taken prisoner long ago... well, Cattleya would surely be delighted to find her little sister was alive, and Mother would never need to know what Louise had been up to.  
  
It was the perfect plan.  
  
Louise began to chuckle.  
  
“Oi!” Jessica glared up at her. “What’s so funny? If these measurements are mucked up because you’re moving, you’re going to be the one who’s going to be rubbed raw by chafing plates, not me.”  
  
“Nothing,” Louise said serenely. “Nothing is wrong whatsoever.”


	9. A Taxing Affair 3-1

_“Minions do so love to loot. You wouldn’t want to leave those dear little faces looking unhappy, would you? No? Then pillage, plunder and pilfer! For your own benefit, of course.”_  
  
–  Gnarl

* * *

 

  
  
The red moonlight streamed in down through the narrow hole cut in the roof. There was the squeaking of a wheel, and the light was momentarily blotted out as something small and remarkably pungent was lowered down. Muttered voices and the momentary flash of a dark lantern were lost under the noise from the streets below.  
  
“Lower,” the whisper came. “Come ons, you slackers.”  
  
The wheel squeaked again. “You can see it, Fettid?” one of the cranking figures asked.  
  
Lantern light revealed itself from the hole, dancing over the inside of the solid stone building. “Yes,” the explorer hissed back up. The light shone upon gold bars and solid crates. “Shinies are there.”  
  
“Right,” the largest shadowy figure at the crank said, “we do what the Overlady said the plan was. Fettid, you grabs one bar at a time, and we crank you up. Igni?”  
  
“Yep?” another figure said, standing by a collection of tubes. There was a small pop, as it lit a flame on the end of one of its fingers.  
  
“Make sky-boom happens and mistress know we find gold for her.”  
  
“Oh yay,” the other figure said gleefully, lowering its burning finger towards the end of the tubes.  
  
There was a crackle, and a whoosh, as four rockets shot up into the sky, their exhausts coincidentally setting their igniter on fire. That did not seem to phase him, however, as he “oooh’d” and “aaah’d” at the explosions in the sky.  
  
Which was only matched by the thunderous detonation elsewhere in the town. In the general consensus of the now-very-drunk townfolk, it was pretty, although all the alarm bells and running guards was a bit of a party pooper.  
  
But this is actually an example of the narrative device known as _in media res_ , where the tale begins mid-way through the story. No one knows exactly why authors choose to do this. Perhaps the profession has some form of collective snit which leads them to loathe giving full information about a sequence of events when they could be needlessly obtuse. It is certainly known for a fact that authors to a man laugh maniacally when they do it, and then twirl their moustache, retreat to their drawing rooms, and then get drunk on expensive absinthe. Or when they have no absinthe left, there’s always rum.  
  
Wait, no, that’s poets. Authors are the hard-working, under-appreciated ones, who work long and hard to create an interesting set up. Completely different, and not at all like those tricksy poets who have the kenning of the arcane ways of rigid meter and rhyme. And so, now that the bait has been laid, our story leads up back two days earlier…

* * *

  
  
“Stand and deliver!” the highwayman announced, flourishing his pistol at the mail coach. “Your money or your life!” His cravat was finely set and his cloak was midnight black. Behind him three other somewhat-less-stylish, but certainly well-coifed highwaymen looked suitably sleek. They cast long shadows down onto the road, lit melodramatically by the setting sun behind them.  
  
The driver froze, one hand slowly going behind him.  
  
The highwayman gestured with his pistol again. “No, sir, do not think of such things. Else I would have to shoot you, and I’m sure you have a wife and children back home; sir, please think of them. Just get off the coach and lie down on the ground, and no one has to get hurt.”  
  
“I wasn’t getting my blunderbuss for you, you daft bugger,” the driver hissed. “I’ve been robbed before; I know how this goes. Look behind you!”  
  
With a growing edge of unease, the man turned to look, and found that he and his men had been surrounded by a cluster of smelly green-skinned goblins. From the treeline, other creatures were emerging, holding a motley assortment of weaponry. This included a fair few pistols, held with concerning accuracy and proficiency. Their savage cries set birds fleeing.  
  
“Your money an’ your life!”  
  
“For the Overlady!”  
  
“Yarrrr!”  
  
“You stoopid! ‘Yarrr’ for pirates, not highwayminions!”  
  
And behind them was a figure. Against the blood-red light of the setting sun, they were a shrouded menace. Steel glinted in the dying day, but all that could be seen of their hooded features were a pair of terrible burning eyes.  
  
There was a distinct air about the whole scenario which suggested that the walking nightmare should have been some towering titan, not barely over a metre-and-a-half tall.  
  
“Get off your horses,” the figure commanded, the voice clearly feminine, “and lie down on the ground. Drop your weapons, and take off your cloaks. As long as you do exactly as I say, no one need be... um, hurt.”  
  
“What? Bugger off, short-arse,” the highwayman said. “I’m not stripping for no one, even if you are a woman under all that clank.” He heard a click, and his eyes flicked to see a little goblin playing with the flint on its flintlock pistol. The firearm was unwavering held at his head, and he swallowed.  
  
“Ha!” the stranger retorted, most of the menace leaving her voice. “That means you _are_ stripping for someone!”  
  
“What?” the man asked. “I just said... look...”  
  
“Look, get off your horse or I’ll set you on fire,” she said, a ball of pink flame appearing above her left hand.  
  
That was language he could understand, even if it was said in a decidedly noble accent. And now he had positive proof that it wasn’t just some ponce in fancy armour, he might as well do what she said. Even if he managed to stop the goblin from shooting him, he’d just be set on fire. And if he tried to run away, he’d be set on fire. And if he tried to hide behind the mail coach... well, assuming he fought off the goblins surrounding it, he would be, yes, probably set on fire.  
  
Bloody nobles, oppressing the common man like that. Wasn’t fair at all. Couldn’t a highwayman try to rob a bloody coach in peace and quiet without some magic-using twit busting up his hold-up?  
  
By the end of the day, he wasn’t quite sure what the worst bit was. Maybe it was the fact that the stinking goblins had stolen his tricorn hat. Maybe it was that they’d also stolen everything he’d been wearing, apart from his breeches. Maybe it was that they’d left him nearly-naked on a road at night with a similarly unclad coach driver and the angry bandits he’d recruited for this job. Maybe it was that they’d stolen his horse. Or even that the goblins had picked up the coach, and run away with it.  
  
There had been so many bad things this day that he wasn’t sure which one was the worst.  
  
A wolf howled in the depths of the woods. Followed by another one.  
  
Oh. Well.  
  
Damn.

* * *

 

  
Almost two kilometres away down the road and then off into a clearing, the minions dropped the coach and the unconscious horses they were carrying. The animals had objected to being stolen, so had been rendered unconscious with only moderate amounts of enthusiastically unnecessary violence.  
  
Breathing out, Louise took off her helmet and shook out her hair. She mopped her brow on the short robe, and then carefully put the helmet back on. “And that’s how you carry out highway robbery,” she declared to the world, giggling. “I... I robbed the robbers and stole the coach too! And we now have horses, too. And by ‘we’, I mean ‘I’.”  
  
“And new hats!” a blue minion wearing a long black cloak and a tricorn hat said, bobbing his head sagely. Louise suspected it was deliberate imitation of Gnarl, which was only confirmed when the creature went to stroke a goatee it did not have. “And treasure for you, mistress!”  
  
“ _Well done, my lady,_ ” Gnarl said cheerfully. “ _Normally I would have said that it’s best to set the coach on fire, because even in summer it gets chilly in the evenings, but I suppose your own coach is something to plunder._ ”  
  
The girl smirked. “That’s not just why,” she said smugly. “It’s got the royal seal on the side, which means it’s a royal mail coach, and that means that not only is it likely to have taxes onboard... which are illegitimately being collected by the Council under false pretences,” and so she could legitimately take them went unsaid, “... but it’s likely to be carrying messages and the like!”  
  
“ _And you have taken hostages, too! We will be able to use some of the rooms that disgusting vampire kept his ‘brides’ in until we have a proper jail set up._ ”  
  
Oops. Louise blushed under the helmet. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of _course_ there would be someone inside the coach! Even if they were locked when moving, there was a guard or a messenger inside just in case. And... drat, drat, drat! She should have thought about that! She should... no. But what if they were the... argh! “I will see if there is indeed someone in there,” she said, as regally as she could manage, “and if there is someone, I will see if they are loyal to the Council. If they are, then I will take them captive. If they are not, I will release them to spread news that the Council are unjust traitors.”  
  
“ _Oooh! Divide and conquer, and subversion! Sneaky!_ ” Gnarl said approvingly.  
  
Louise stared at the coach. Almost idly, she created another ball of pink fire, more for the light than for anything. The minions looked rather strange when lit by that, she noted idly – something not helped by the few reds she had also flaring their own fires to life. Well, she better get this over and done with quickly before the reds set this area on fire, which they would inevitably do if she did not act.  
  
“Minions,” she commanded, “surround that coach! If there is a person inside and they try to flee, seize them and hold them down! Um. Don’t kill them unless I tell you to. Not even by accident,” she added, because in the months she had known them she already had acquired a fairly good grasp of the minion mindset.  
  
“We right behind you, mistress,” Maggat said, his trusty sack at the ready. Louise had retained his services even after acquiring the gauntlet, because it took time and remembering how to waggle her fingers just right to absorb money, and frankly it was much easier to have someone collect it all before she had to do her thing to it. “Just give the word.”  
  
Louise nodded. She opened her mouth to tell the minions to break down the door to the coach to get to the treasure inside, and paused. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. She had this mental image of them breaking rather more than just the doors off. So instead she turned to Maggat and said, “Open the door, without breaking anything else. This is going to be my coach, and I will be angry if it is damaged.”  
  
Maggat stepped up to the door, rapped on it twice, and said, “It safe to come out now! Monsters all dead!”  
  
The girl worked her jaw in surprise, but said nothing. That... had she just been outwitted by a _minion?_ The fact that Maggat was winking heavily at the other minions and grinning like... like the illegitimate offspring of a wolf, a cat and some kind of monkey just made things worse.  
  
“It’s safe?” came a quavering female voice from within.  
  
“Yes yes,” Maggat said, mugging heavily for his grinning audience. “Safe as house!”  
  
“It funny because house not at all safe when we...” began a brown, before being clubbed unconscious by other, slightly-faster-on-the-uptake minions.  
  
“Okay! I’m opening the door,” came the words. The carriage’s door was opened. A fraction of a second later, a series of burning air-blades made their egress and scythed their way through the minions who had been clustered around it.  
  
Oh, wait, whoever was in there hadn’t fallen for it. Everything was better. Worse, of course, because now there was a mage firing spells around and Maggat and some of the others were dead and so needed some medical attention, but still. At least the world was making sense. Louise jammed her staff into the door before it could close, levered it open, and thrust her burning hand inside.  
  
“You’re in a wooden carriage!” Louise shouted harshly, raising her voice. “And I have fire! Surrender and you will be treated fittingly!”  
  
... was she threatening to set people on fire too much? No, probably not. In fact, not at all! No one complained about _Kirche von Zerbst_ being a fire mage whose entire personality seemed to be literally and metaphorically based around fire, did they? And everyone knew that fire mages set people on fire! That woman in the coach just had! So it would be hypocritical for her to protest at Louise’s actions.  
  
Safe in her logic, the overlady paid attention to the carriage and its occupant, who had sensibly lowered her wand in the knowledge that Louise could use the fireball before she could get a word of her chant out. The woman within looked to be a few years older than her, her mid-brown hair tied back into two split pigtails by expensive-looking scarlet ties. Her dress was coordinated to match that, gold-trimmed red brocade cut high in the neck, with white sleeves and trimming. To Louise’s high nobility eyes it was typical of the upper-middle nobility, and more than a little gauche.  
  
“So,” she said, her accent providing all the further proof Louise had needed on her well-off status, “I’m your prisoner, then? And you clearly want me alive, or you would just burn me now... please don’t. Please please please don’t burn me. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll… whatever! Just don’t kill me!”  
  
... on the other hand, the woman did not seem to be all that much taller than she was, and had a similar build. So at least there was some small degree of empathy there. And... wait a moment, why did the woman seem to be unfastening her dress? What on earth was going on?  
  
Some of her confusion must have shown in her manner, because the woman paused. “Or would you rather wait until later, my lord? Do you wish to take me back to show off your dark tower? I’m sure it is… uh, very tall.”  
  
Louise de la Vallière, whose tower was not really a tower and was much more of a dungeon hidden within the dark places of the earth said the first thing which came to mind. And that was, “Excuse me? ‘My lord’? What are you, stupid? Or just blind?”  
  
There was a moment of mutual confusion.  
  
“You’re a girl?” the auburn-haired woman said, eyes bulging. Her hand hovered around the neck of her dress.  
  
Louise glared at the woman, eyes flaring, and jabbed her finger at her chest. “What do you think these are?” she hissed. “Of course I’m a girl!”  
  
The woman puffed out her cheeks. “Look, honestly, you’re dressed like a man.”  
  
“I’m not!”  
  
“You are too!” she pouted. “Evil women do not dress like that! You’re exposing nothing but your mouth. And... and I would like to add, it was an easy mistake to make!”  
  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Louise shouted, the ball of fire in her hand flaring brighter.  
  
“Look, if you’re going to dress like a man, you could at least give people a clue that you’re female! Like… in the armour? Or in the colour scheme?”  
  
“Wasn’t my voice enough of a clue? And the armour curves out in the chest! And I have heels! And steel and red looks good!”  
  
The woman paused, and her eyes lit up as she suddenly ‘realised’ something. “I see,” she said, languidly, leaning back inside the coach. “Oh, I see. Yes.”  
  
Louise did not see what she saw, but did use the chance to scoop the wand out of the coach with the end of her staff. It rattled down onto the ground, where it was swiftly picked up by one of the blues who were seeing to the burned and mutilated minions. Several of them were having to be pieced back together before they could be resurrected, and inevitably minion japes and jokes were occurring with severed heads.  
  
“I am Rebecca de Ghent, second child of the marquis, on the service of the Crown, and I surrender myself to your custody in the expectation that I will be treated with the full honour and respect due to my station,” the woman added, raising her hands to her neck to continue unfastening her dress. “I do so hope you won’t indulge in all kinds of sinful and... dreadfully wicked ways with me.” She paused, licking her lips. “I am a good daughter of the Church, after all, and to be drawn into sins of passion and lust would be just terrible.”  
  
Louise nodded. “It would be. You need not fear for your virtue.” Now that she had surrendered, the other woman’s honour bound her, so she let the fire go out. Simple enough.  
  
That did not seem to be the answer the lady de Ghent was looking for. “I said,” she said, peeling back her outer dress as she unfastened the rest of it, “I do not want some terrible force of darkness and evil taking advantage of my purity. Oh, to feel the hands of another woman on me against my will, ravaging me until I am forced to indulge in her dark pleasures.”  
  
“As I _said_ , you are safe,” Louise repeated, irritation seeping into her voice. “I’m not like some man... in fact, I took you away from those scoundrels who were the ones who tried to rob the coach in the first place.  
  
“Oh, the horrors, the dark horrors of being ravished by a dark queen of the night!”  
  
“Yes. You. Are. Safe.”  
  
The girl received a flat stare from the older woman. “You’re a dark lady, who parades around dressed as a man, with a boyish physique, and you’re trying to persuade me that you _don’t_ take decadent pleasure in other women? Am... am I just not attractive or something?”  
  
“You want me to do _what?_ ” Louise yelped in horrified realisation. “That’s... that’s disgusting! I... I’m a girl! I think you must be disturbed from the shock!”  
  
She was certainly not taking _this_ woman prisoner, Louise decided. She might take being locked up in a cell as some kind of encouragement. This was certainly not a rational response to being held captive by a dark armoured figure and her smelly goblins. And even if she didn’t... no, it was simply safer to get her as far away from her as possible. Preferably as fast as possible.

* * *

  
  
“... and she wanted me t-to take advantage of her!” Louise ranted, jabbing the meat on her plate with a fork. With a twist, she worked it in deeper. “Me! A girl! What kind of perverse decadent ways d-do some of the n-nobility have? I... I could j-just about understand why some handsome dark lord might t-turn the head of a silly young girl, but another girl?”  
  
With a loud slurp she finished her wine, and slammed the cup back down on the table. The cup rocked on the ancient wood, and made the candle light dance. Founder, she couldn’t wait until she got a dining place with windows, or failing that some proper magelights. The torches were too smelly to tolerate when eating – God only knew what the minions made them from – and candles were too dim.  
  
“See! That is something which has to change! That there are p-people here who are _worse than Kirche von Zerbst!_ At l-least she restrained her... d-depravity to boys! How... how dare she make me feel uncomfortable when I was the one who was holding her prisoner and she... she should have been feeling worried, and then relieved that I was not some m-monster! She actually took her dress off! Well, of course I took it, because there was a pistol hidden in it, but she… argh! It was horrible! I was completely right to tie her up and leave her by the coaching house in a sack with a note attached, because there was no way I would be spending any more time near her ever again! Ever!”  
  
“Oh, indeed, my lady,” Gnarl said blandly, eating cockroaches one by one from his bowl. Louise tried to ignore the crunches coming from his direction.  
  
“And another thing! The assumption that just because... because I want to be warm and protected and so wear proper armour, I must be some kind of woman who wants.... who wants to do things like a man! And not things like conquest and terror and other things l-like that, no! Not the things you’d expect someone wearing full armour to do! No, it’s all about the things that y-you’d have to take your armour off to do!”  
  
“You were the one who commissioned the armour in such a classically masculine design, my lady,” Gnarl said, with more crunches. “I think you would be mistaken for a man if you covered up your hair and walked around your capital dressed as a man. It’s just how things are done.” He coughed. “And I do believe it is traditional to leave the helmet on.”  
  
“I did not want to know that!” Louise shrieked. That outburst seemed to take most of the fury she had been running off out of her, and she slumped down in her seat, sulking.  
  
With perfect equanimity, Gnarl finished off his bowl of cockroaches and sautéed rat, and then had a wig-wearing minion refill his own glass. Lifting a folder of paperwork off the floor, he carefully went through a few sheets with an expression of what was probably mild contentment on his face. He made a few careful notes, and passed the finished documents to another minion, before pulling out a small leather-bound notebook.  
  
“My lady,” he said, after Louise had been stewing in her own anger for a good quarter of an hour, “do you wish to know of the things we found in the carriage?”  
  
“… fine,” Louise said sulkily. She straightened up slightly, the shift in her posture showing that the change of subject was a welcome relief.  
  
“Well, firstly,” Gnarl said, flicking through the notebook, “the carriage was carrying in magically sealed chests a collection of tax revenue. The dear little minions managed to break into the chests with no more than the usual amount of casualties, and almost all of the ones who were maimed, mangled, mutilated, or chopped into little pieces by golems have been bought back to life safe and sound. The treasury is looking a little more healthy, to the tune of just over a hundred of your golden coins?”  
  
“A hundred ecú?” Louise asked, sucking in a breath. “That’s a fair amount.”  
  
“Certainly a tolerable payment for an Evil day’s work,” Gnarl agreed. “Tolerable, if barely so.”  
  
“And I suppose since you’re Evil, you’ll start forging coins to pay people with and mixing some kind of… some kind of secret alchemical mix which weighs the same as gold in,” the girl added, with only slight disapproval. “That way, it can go even further.”  
  
“Oh, no no no,” Gnarl said, in a dreadfully shocked voice. “I may be blackest Evil, but there are some places even I won’t go, and adulterating the currency is one of them. It only hurts you in the long run, because once you rule everything a loss of faith in your own currency is dreadful. And it also means that people carry less value because the currency is worth less, and so there is less per person for the little darlings to steal!”  
  
“Uh,” Louise began, and paused. “All right. Well, still.”  
  
“But the best bit came in that woman’s dress, which you so cunningly stole,” Gnarl continued.  
  
Louise, who had taken it because she thought it would fit her and she really needed something to wear which wasn’t made of steel said nothing. Anyway, it wasn’t like it was theft if the person removed it themselves. It was more like… a present, yes. Or even an attempted bribe. And since she hadn’t done what the briber wanted, that was good of her, wasn’t it?  
  
“You see, in the pockets, was this notebook, encoded in a cipher,” Gnarl said. “Not a very clever one, I should add; pah! A substitution cipher is worth less than a green’s personal hygiene when it comes to concealing meaning! Especially when you’re stupid enough to begin each entry with the date! Why, that makes it simple to find out the substation being used; it might stop a casual reader from scanning over it, but it falls against even the slightest attempt from someone with dark and malign intentions – like me!”  
  
“Will you get to the point?” Louise snapped.  
  
“Yes, my lady. As I was saying,” Gnarl said, flicking through the notebook, “enciphered within this notebook are a series of secret instructions from the Comte de Mott. She is on the service of the Crown – and thus the Council – a royal messenger, if you will. It also notes that she shouldn’t be writing this down and it was given to her to memorise, but, oh well, such are the self-defeating ways of the disgusting Light and Good. The book notes that they have been collecting tax revenues from all across this province in the town of Loven, in a secret building separate from the normal vaults. Which, oh look, that ever-so helpful friend you made has noted down.”  
  
“She’s not my _friend_ ,” Louise objected reflexively, tilting her head as she thought. “So we know where that is… does it say how many guards there are?”  
  
“No, my lady, but if it is secret… there will certainly be less defences than the normal treasury vaults. And…” Gnarl flipped a few pages, “why, I do believe that the Comte de Mott himself is scheduled to attend that place in a few days, during the festival he has arranged for Loven to get them to see the benefits of the Council.”  
  
Louise squared her jaw. “Go in, get the gold, leave him empty handed and humiliated,” she said. “Or dead. Either works. Although he is meant to be a triangle-class mage… well, it may depend on how many men he has with him.”  
  
“Excellent plan, your dark ladyship,” Gnarl said, slipping down off his chair. “I will go prepare for our assault on the town.”  
  
“No.” The words were flat. “No, Gnarl, not yet.”  
  
The elderly minion paused, the light on the pole above him bobbing in surprise. “Excuse me?” he asked.  
  
Louise gripped her hands around the edge of her chair, feeling the stone cold under her grip. “I will go in first, tomorrow,” she said. “In disguise, in the black robe again. Use the chance to see the place, get to know it. See where the hidden treasury is. And also buy some food. And some fresh fruit and vegetables. And also to start some rumours about me where it is made _entirely clear_ that I don’t like women like that!”  
  
The elderly minion sighed. “As you wish, my lady,” he said, hobbling off.


	10. A Taxing Affair 3-2

_“Beware the evil lures of evil women! Revile their wicked ways, and keep your purity! They may look harmless, with their luscious, shapely bodies and red inviting lips which taste of cherries and sweet things and skin as soft as velvet which makes you shiver when they gently caress you! Nothing could be further from the truth! Given half a chance, they will send foul demons to do terrible things to you in your dreams, all night long! And then they will also seduce your secretary and do dreadful, amorous things to him and make you watch! And they laugh at you, and blame you for ruining their life and setting them on the path to evil when they loved you, but you chose to join the Church and left them pregnant rather than marrying them! And they burst out crying because they claim that you betrayed them even when you were childhood best friends and so forced them to learn black magic to get back at you! That is why you must revile them! Their malevolent, lying ways know neither boundaries nor restraint!”_  
  
–  Pope Aegis X, ‘Lectures on the Wickedness of Women, Part XXIV’

* * *

  
  
Louise folded her arms, staring up at the ceiling from her bed. A sick buzz of nervous tension filled her stomach.  
  
This... this was the point from which it wouldn’t be easy to go back from. Right now, she could still just about appear back in civilised society, talking about a ruined tower and... and she could make up some story about being a prisoner or something. Once she had attacked a town of the nation, raided it, even killed another noble... there was no way back until the endgame. Not until she could say to herself honestly that it had been a necessary sacrifice and that the good she had done had outweighed what evil she was forced into.  
  
But no. That wasn’t an option any more. Not when people were holding Princess Henrietta captive. Not when her fiancé – former fiancé now – was a treacherous unfaithful dog. And not when going back would make her a failure at this chance to save her country from traitors. Her mother had not chosen to act for some reason, and so... there was no way she could find this tolerable! Something had to be stopping her from making everything better! Maybe they were even threatening Cattleya!  
  
So she, her youngest daughter, would have to do it for her.  
  
Louise de la Vallière squared her jaw and stared at herself in the cracked mirror the minions had found for her in the tower. Gnarl said it had belonged to a mistress of a former overlord, and that made sense, because... well. Vampires were not known for their fondness of mirrors. Either way, it was a pretty mirror, even if the obsidian spikes which surrounded it were rather ostentatious and – she had found already – sharp enough to draw blood. And this way, she could brush her hair properly which was a god-send. Helmets were _terrible_ for one’s hairstyle.  
  
But now to the business at hand. What was she going to wear when she scouted out the village? Obviously, she had the robe she had worn to Bruxelles, but back then she hadn’t had her armour, and she hadn’t had the dress she had taken from that... that slatternly woman. Now she was faced with the horrors of choice.  
  
Well, she certainly wasn’t going to leave her gauntlet at home. The girl paused for a moment, at the fact she had actually thought of this rotten, stinking place as ‘home’, and then shook her head. Well, she corrected herself; she certainly wasn’t going to leave the gauntlet at the tower. It was the way she could talk to Gnarl and it was a wand in its own right and it was her purse. It would be foolish to leave it behind.  
  
But then again, she should also wear her breastplate under her robe, Louise decided, putting it on and beginning to fasten up the straps. What if someone attacked her? And maybe she should wear the armoured boots too, because they were very comfortable, made her taller, and were actually wonderfully waterproof. And…  
  
… and this wasn’t going to work, she realised half an hour later as she stared at her mostly armoured form in the mirror. All she was really lacking was the helmet. With a sigh, she began to unfasten everything again. Well, maybe not the breastplate. Or the... no, no, no! That would just lead to it again!  
  
An hour and a half later, Louise de la Vallière began the walk down to the tower heart. She was dressed in the same black robe she had worn to Bruxelles. Through the irregular openings in the upper levels she could see that the sun was already higher than she would have liked. She shrugged; at least the magic would mean she had no great distance to go. Just down these endless stairs and through whitewashed halls, past her advisor and...  
  
“My lady? You are clanking slightly.”  
  
“... shut up, Gnarl.” Inwardly she seethed. One of the biggest reasons for getting away was a day where she wouldn’t have to put up with his... his disrespectful helpfulness! Nothing could be that annoying! “And,” she added in passing, “I don’t want to be followed. If I want help from minions, I’ll summon them! I need a day free once in a while, when I’ve spent days running around swamps trying to find goblins!” When she stepped through the tower heart, she’d be away from all this and this stinking wet cold damp ruin!  
  
Emerging from the portal and blinking in the sudden sunlight, Louise found herself surrounded by small horses. Insofar as an animal barely smarter than sheep could look righteously angry, they looked righteously angry.  
  
“Shoo!” Louise commanded, flapping at them with one hand.  
  
The lead one exhaled and scraped at the ground with a forehoof.

* * *

  
  
Fire crackled and roared. Thick white smoke clung to the ground, heavy and cloying.  
  
“You made me do this, ponies!” Louise growled to the charred meat before her. “I didn’t want to do this, but you brought it upon yourselves.” In her metal boots she stomped away from the burning field, and then – upon careful consideration – ran for it.  
  
As long as she was away from the site of the fire, she could always blame it on a fire dragon. In fact, she’d tell people she’d seen one flying around as she passed them on the road. That’d get rid of any suspicion from her. The perfect cri... perfect act of self-defence against unwarranted aggression from stupid animals!  
  
Plus, they’d provided her with a fair amount of life-energy. Bending down, Louise scooped up the last remaining apple-sized orb of golden light in one hand – or at least did as best she could. It wasn’t solid; it was like tar, and stuck to things. She could only see it when she was wearing her gauntlet, and when she touched the sticky light with the magical device, it absorbed it in a way which brought a sharp inhalation to mind. She very carefully didn’t think too hard on what that might mean.  
  
Whistling to herself, happy to be out in the summer warmth – which was a little too warm in her robe and armour, which she really should have thought of – Louise de la Vallière set off down the road. It was perhaps a kilometre or two from the woods where the stone circle had been to the walls of the towns of Loven, and along the way she made sure to tell everyone she passed about the dragon.  
  
“... what, another one?” The burly merchant in the hat swore. “Sorry milady, but those youngsters said they’d dealt with it! They had a dragon of their own, you know, and they said they’d killed that earth dragon good!”  
  
Louise coughed, and blinked. “It was a fire dragon,” she said. “It set ponies on... on fire.”  
  
The man sucked in a breath. “Two dragons in such a short time? That’s awful bad luck. You better tell the town council, milady; they’ll want to know about this!” He shook his head. “I better move on quick, while it eats, I think!”  
  
... well, at least he believed her. Louise put the incident out of mind as she made her way across the stone bridge and through the gates to the market town. With open eyes, she noted the barges making their way down the river and through the town, laden down with goods.  
  
And it was certainly a market town. Brightly coloured stalls were everywhere, and the clamour and cry of human voices filled the air. Compared to Bruxelles this place may have been diminutive, but it also didn’t smell as bad and the air was cleaner. And there were stalls with food on, and she could have proper food again!  
  
The dark lady squinted at one stall in particular, and stroked her chin. Yes. She should use the chance to have as much proper soft cheese as she could, because it wouldn’t keep well if she bought it back. She had missed good soft cheeses so very much; the one the minions made from rat’s milk was both bland and hard. Which she hadn’t suspected, given it was... well, made from rats, but there you go.

* * *

  
Walking through the town, Louise de la Vallière did not forget her mission, and so she made several notes. The very-nearly-the-first-after-a-few-minor-things thing she did was to make her way to the place where, according to the notes, the taxes were secretly being stored. It was a solid, heavy squat stone building which, if the sign on it was to be believed, was where windstones were stored. Well, that would certainly explain such heavy construction, the girl thought. And the cheek; the Mott crest was on the building! There were guards all around the building, on the roof and at the windows and door, which prevented her from having a closer look. But it was certainly a place where taxes could be stored.  
  
She paused, and nodded. Yes, that made even more sense, because next to it was an anchorage-point for windships. Clearly the Council would have the taxes moved by windship, and if they did it stealthily, no one would ever know they had been moved. Which... she smiled to herself... possibly even suggested that they might not want to admit they had been stolen – indeed, as a bunch of traitors, they were almost certainly skimming off the top of the funds! And probably the bottom of the funds too, and a bit off the sides! Or maybe even just keeping them all for themselves.  
  
After all, they were all a bunch of traitorous curs who leapt into bed with women when their fiancé was less than a season dead and who would be grievously punished like the dogs they were! Apart from the woman who was the one whose bed was jumped into, and so was a bi... female dog.  
  
No! The girl pinched herself! She couldn’t get angry about that! She had to think clearly, and rationally, and sensibly, and so extract revenge properly! Like by... oooh, a mooring with the de Mott crest on it, next to a similarly marked warehouse! That made a lot more sense! Yes, if she sent the minions in to loot and pillage that, it would be a righteous punishment rather than theft, and thus acceptable in the eyes of God. And even if the minions broke things and set the place on fire rather than actually steal things properly, that wouldn’t matter, because _it would still be righteous punishment_.  
  
The girl began to chuckle to herself, the laughter echoing strangely out of her dark cowl.  
  
“‘Ere, what’s so funny, lady?” a grubby small child asked her. Their sex was indistinct under all the mud, but it was probably largely academic anyway.  
  
Louise stopped laughing, and instead gave the commoner small child a small coin in return for directions, including to the town hall. Which was apparently undergoing some rather extensive repair work, judging from the cranes and scaffolding and earth mages and... and other such things that were involved in construction work; the girl wasn’t too familiar with such things. In lieu of the knowledge of architecture required to determine what had happened, she instead asked the small and dirty child.  
  
“That? That was th’earth dragon,” the child said, affecting what it probably thought was a scholarly tone. “It was all snaky and big and armoured and it crawled through the streets and it ate Willy’s dog and Doug’s...”  
  
“Other people have mentioned the dragon,” Louise said, not particularly caring about the prattling of the child and thus tuning it out once that had turned out to be just that. “You can go now.”  
  
“It was _so awesome,_ ” the child said, gesturing wildly. “It was like ‘roar’ and then it was ‘rat rat rat’ as rocks went _everywhere_ and then the hero was all like ‘oh, dark dragon, terrible force of evil, I shall defeat you with the power of the rose, the most beautiful of all the flowers, in the name of truth, justice, love, hope, beauty, and the rose’, and when it was paying attention to him the other dragon was like ‘woosh’ and then there was wind and fire everywhere and then he did this like super-duper-amazing-awesome-mega thing where he...”  
  
“Go away, small child,” Louise said, barely listening. “Here, take this denier and stop bothering me.” She was rather more occupied with working out how to get into the town hall. The flag of Tristain was at full mast, which meant that a meeting was going on, and if she could listen in, she could get away with it. Nobles could always attend town council meetings; that was the law. Argh! Curse her need to be in disguise! She was Louise de la Vallière, a daughter of one of the highest noble families in the country, and if she could just declare who she was, they’d almost certainly let her in. But that would ruin everything!  
  
“Gnarl,” she whispered. “Can you hear me? Can you think up a plan to help me get into the meeting without having to give my name or... or being suspicious?”  
  
“ _Well, I recommend that you start by sneakily setting someone or something on fire,_ ” Gnarl advised. “ _Once you do that, there will be a distraction, and so you will be able to get through without any real problems at all._ ”  
  
“I could do that,” Louise muttered into her gauntlet, an idea having come to mind – which she was sure was less stupid than setting something on fire as a distraction, “or I could instead do this.” And with that said, she marched right up to the guard at the door. “Peasant!” she snapped. “You! Get that door open immediately!”  
  
There was a slapping noise from the gauntlet, almost as if an elderly minion had just hit itself in the face with one hand. For his part, the guard straightened up. “Milady,” he said, “I’m afraid I don’t...”  
  
Louise puffed herself up to her full height, and glared down – well, up – her nose at the man. “Excuse me? Excuse me!” she snapped. “Why are you not already opening the door, commoner? What cheek! Don’t you know who I am?”  
  
The man flinched. “I’m sorry, milady,” he said, flinching, “but... well, the orders say that...”  
  
“I should have you flogged! You impudent dog! Where are your superiors? If you don’t let me on right now, I swear on all that is holy, you won’t be able to sit down for a week! No, a month! No, a...”  
  
There was a small clonk as the guard saluted so hard he gave himself a small concussion. “Right away my lady, I’ll get the door for you,” he said quickly. “Sorry mightily for the rudeness and I’m sorry so sorry very sorry milady sorry.”  
  
Louise sniffed. “Adequate. Barely,” she said, gliding through.  
  
“ _There was a peculiar lack of fire for you_ ” Gnarl said, a trifle disappointed. “ _Are you feeling all right, my lady?_ ”

* * *

  
  
“... and so that’s decided,” the mayor said, leaning forward. “We will have the flower girls throw garlands over the Count de Mott _before_ he formally enters the town, thus avoiding the small problem which might be caused by the problem with the cesspit near the entrance.”  
  
The lady Emmanuelle ran her hands through her long blonde hair. “It’s perfect,” she declared, ignoring the clatter as a black-robed noble entered and sat down at the back. “Please do try to arrive on time; I made sure the fliers were printed _personally_ and that they were all delivered,” she said, a touch snappishly. “I do believe that we will certainly win the Town of the Year award for how we will impress the Count de Mott!” she added, clutching her hands to her bosom.  
  
There was a muttered apology from the robed figure, and attention moved to the matter of the order in which the drinks would be served, and whether it might be a good idea to – at the last moment, raising the cost notably, as someone pointed out – buy more wine from some of the river traders.  
  
However, the peaceful process of minor bureaucracy was interrupted twice. First, hammering started up on the roof, repairing the tarpaulin-covered hole which the men were working _triple time_ to repair. And then almost as soon as that had stopped, an elderly woman burst through the door. “Evil!” she shrieked. “Evil has come! Doom is upon us all! We are doomed! Dooooooomed!”  
  
“Oh, Founder,” muttered Baron Joplain, “it must be Watersday. The countess is here.”  
  
Everyone on the town council wrinkled their noses at the sight of the elderly lady, who appeared to have half a bee nest in her hair, and whose mantle was smeared with bird poo. She may have been the wealthiest woman in the area who owned most of the surrounding woods – and the town, for that matter, though that was something they tried not to mention – but she was also madder than a mercury-addicted manufacture of head-warmers. “I have talked to the birds of the forest, and the fish of the rivers, and the deer of the fields, and the cows, also of the fields,” she began, in a cracked old voice, “and they all tell my familiar the same thing! There is a great _eeeeeeevil_ rising in the land!”  
  
The mayor cleared his throat. “A what?” he asked.  
  
“An evil!!!” the old lady repeated, hoping that multiple exclamation marks would adequately take the place of elongation of the word. “Goblin tribes are raiding through the forests, and the birds say that they have roamed across the land, pillaging and stealing. The rats of the city say that they even have infiltrated the capital itself, spreading vileness and horror wherever they go!”  
  
“… are we talking about the same goblins here?” asked the blonde lady Emmanuelle. “Short, smelly and stupid? Madam, goblins cannot infiltrate your average village if the inhabitants have a sense of smell, let alone the capital. Please, you’re…”  
  
But the old woman was not to be stopped. “And the trolls! They’re coming down out of the northern mountains! And orcs maim and slay, bringing their evil magics and their vile hungers and terrible strength with them.”  
  
“It’s summer. They do that every summer, when the crops are in the field. The roadwardens are meant to warn of them, so that they can be dealt with.”  
  
“Bandits disturb the land, and dragons fly overhead, a sight not seen in hundreds of years!”  
  
“Uh… what?” the blonde asked, genuinely bemused. “Yes, we know a bloody dragon attacked the town, pardon my Gallian. Didn’t you? And... when you say hundreds of years, if you’re going to be like that, didn’t the Dragon Knights put on a demonstration at the spring festival?”  
  
“Maybe she’s getting upset that a bunch of schoolchildren with their own dragon went and stopped the earthwyrm,” the portly man suggested. “Countess, they were _on our side_.”  
  
“I think she has been feasting a little too heavily on the mushrooms of the forest,” said the elderly councilman with snow white hair, to laughter. “Esmeraulde, you are embarrassing yourself and us. If you cannot stop with this… insanity, we will have to keep you away from the fete. We simply cannot have you making a fool of yourself in front of the Count de Mott, because that will look very bad. Very bad indeed.”  
  
“The forces of Darkness and Evil are on the move!” the old woman shrieked. “Already, tales are spreading of servant of the crown left callously discarded by the side of the road like used meat by… a great servant of darkness. Possibly even… a lord over darkness! The evil that stalks the land hungers for virtues and souls, and will not rest until all is defiled by its unclean touch, I’m telling you this!”  
  
One of the audience members leapt to her feet. “That’s not what happened!” a young girl protested – it was the one who had arrived late, in the black robe. The mayor did not approve of children nowadays, with their sombre black clothes and their tight breaches and their practice of dangerous dances like ballet, but he held his peace. “All that happened was that that... that she... that she, yes, some dark evil lady... took someone hostage for a short while! And then she released her, after putting her in a sack.”  
  
There were chuckles from some of the male members of the audience. “That’s now what I heard,” one of them, a red-faced gentleman in a broad hat said. “But you’re probably too young to understand, little girl.”  
  
“Too young?” the black-robed girl snapped back.  
  
“You don’t want to know what evil women can be like; haven’t you read the sermons of Pope Aegis X,” a clergyman said. “They have dreadful wiles, yes. And from what I heard, the poor girl was left nearly naked when she was abandoned by the side of the road, after the terrible dark lady stripped her and – no doubt – did all kinds of terrible things.” He adjusted his somewhat steamed-up glasses. “Decency prevents me from going into any further details,” he added.  
  
There was a noise not dissimilar to steam escaping from a kettle from the young girl.  
  
“Please, please,” the clergyman gestured. “Restrain your righteous anger. The ways of evil are many and detailed, and it is best that you remain ignorant of them, least you be drive to go and seek vengeance for them... and so fall into the very trap which Evil sets. Indeed, has it not been said that...”  
  
The man in the hat tapped the priest on the shoulder. “She already marched out,” he said.  
  
The priest shook his head. “I will pray for her soul, such that she not find the evil she looks for,” he said. “If such evil is already manifest, a young noble like herself will, at best, be traumatised by the horrors of evil women who – it is said – dress like men and cut their hair short and other such sinful things. At worst, she will begin to acquire their ways, and be drawn into temptation.”  
  
“I told you there was evil in the land!” the countess Emmanuelle cackled, the motion dislodging some bees from her hair. “Beware! Beware! Beware of the evil!”  
  
The mayor sounded his gavel. “Order, order!” he commanded. “Now, now. There... there might have been an isolated incident of some petty dark figure attacking a lone woman, but... but that kind of thing happens everywhere! That’s a dreadful shame, of course, and so we should set more guards to patrolling, but in the meantime, I think we should _keep quiet_ about such things,” he said meaningfully. “We do want to win the Town of the Year award, after all! Now, the Count de Mott will be arriving – in disguise, as is his way – some time late tomorrow, when the party is already underway. He said he wants to enjoy that, before he formally is welcomed to the town on the day after tomorrow, and...”  
  
“The evil walks among us! It lurks in shadows and...”  
  
“Please, countess, be quiet.”

* * *

  
  
Shadows loomed long in the cavernous – albeit whitewashed – darkness of the throne room. Monstrous creatures played in the corners. In the pools of light cast by sulphurous torches, their true hideousness could be seen, as well as the fact that they really would put anything they could find on their heads.  
  
Sprawled on the throne was a dark and evil figure clad in dark and evil steel armour, which she wore darkly and evilly. And in her sinister hand, she had a fork with a small piece of soft cheese impaled on it. With ophidian speed, suddenly it was in her mouth, and the fork was loaded with another piece. The overlady began to chuckle to herself, softly.  
  
Gnarl coughed. “My lady,” he said, “you said that you were going to explain the plan, and then got distracted by eating cheese.”  
  
Louise unhooked her leg from the arm of her throne, and sat up. “Do you know how wonderful it is to be wearing armour which isn’t like a skirt?” she said, cheerfully. “I can sprawl! I can do things like sit sideways on a chair and not have to worry about immodesty! It’s wonderful! How dare men keep this secret from women! I should go... go get myself a pair of tights and hosiery to wear, even when I’m not dressed like this!”  
  
“Your evilness,” Gnarl pleaded.  
  
“Mmm?” Louise asked, with her mouth full.  
  
“The plan?”  
  
“Mmmm. Mmmph mmph,” she swallowed. “Oh yes. That.” She coughed. “Oh, it’s pretty simple. To start off, I’ll need a barge, and... yes, if at all possible, one carrying alcohols, or maybe flour. Or large crates. And we’ll need to get the coach out, and... where did you put my horses?”  
  
“In horse-cupboard!” Maggat contributed from his position lounging by base of her throne.  
  
“... right. Well. Um. If they’re alive... what even is a horse-cupboard? No, I don’t want to know! If they’re alive, get them out, otherwise steal some more!” Louise’s expression, such that could be seen under her helmet, turned grim, and she viciously impaled another cube of cheese. “And,” she said, sticking it in her mouth, “they armph all goinmph to paym for this indimipy. The’ wilp rue the damp dey ever crosmph...” she swallowed, “the day they ever crossed me and spread vile scurrilous rumours and laughed at me in public and nudged each other and... in fact, there’s going to be so much ruing around I’ll have to make sure to spare some for the Count de Mott!”  
  
She paused.  
  
“Also, there is going to be pillaging, plundering, and other words I can’t think of right now which also start with a ‘p’. Because they are going to pay!”  
  
There was celebration from the minions.  
  
“That pretty good play on words there,” Maximilian observed, “using two meaning of word ‘pay’. Also, ‘piracy’ word that start with... oww!”  
  
Maggat hit him over the back of the head again. “Less wordiness, more cheering!” he hissed.


	11. A Taxing Affair 3-3

_“Tell your serving girls to pick four purple basil leaves, a sprig of rosemary, fresh Gallian mint, and four olives from trees imported at great expense from Romalia. Send that handsome and limber serving boy down into the ice cellar to recover mandarin liqueur from the Mystic East, and ice-distilled spirits from Rus. Fetch a bottle of gin from your private collection which only you have the key for – I recommend one of the thirteen remaining bottles from the Black Abbey of Tolou. Have your scantily clad serving girls mix the drinks, in a ratio of five parts mandarin to three part Rusean spirits to one part gin, while your alchemist crushes the herbs and rubs them over the surface of the olives, and then adds powdered windstone to give it fizz._  
  
_Strain into a glass through whale baleen, add ice, and then drink.”_  
  
–  “11 Highly Decadent Drinks and 23 Rather More Boring Ones”, by the comte de Mott

* * *

  
  
From afar, the walls of the town blazed with light in the late evening. Lanterns hung from bunting, and long crimson draperies nearly reached the ground. The rattle of coaches and the hoofsteps of horses – not to mention the grumbling of coach drivers and manservants – filled the air around the traffic jam by the gates. Nobles and merchant-commoners were coming from all the surrounding market towns and villages, for the start of the midsummer festival.  
  
An old woman watched the coaches rattle their way in through the town gates. Ancient gnarled hands gripped her walking stick tightly, knuckles whitening and hands shaking. Finally she could take no more.  
  
“Doom! Doom! Doom has come to the town! Even now it walks among us, veiled and disguised!” wailed the countess, who had been cleaned up – something which had evidently not removed the cobwebs from her mind. She jabbed a finger into the crowd. “There! A demon walks among us! Beware!”  
  
“That’s my cousin!” the lady Emmanuelle said, sounding highly offended. “Are you blind, countess? He might have Albionese blood, but that doesn’t make him a demon!”  
  
“For goodness sake,” the mayor sighed, “where is her medicine? We cannot have a repeat of the last time she had one of her... uh, little incidents. And...” he trailed off, as he went to greet more noble guests arriving in carriages. “Ah, Madam de Moulession! So good to see you at this little festival! And...” he trailed off, “I’m sorry, mademoiselle,” he hazarded, “I don’t recognise you, but that is a very scary costume for a little girl!”  
  
“I’m in disguise,” the short woman in armour said, her painted-red lips visibly smiling under her shadowed helmet.  
  
“And a very good costume it is,” he said genially. “Why, it’s much better that the people who are just wearing masques! Who are you meant to be? No, wait, don’t spoil it! It’s much more fun if I can find out on my own! My, my, my, that’s...”  
  
“I’m sorry,” the young woman said, “but I’m meant to be meeting a friend here. But if you want to guess who I am... uh, the invite did say there was a grand unmasking, didn’t it? You will see me there...”  
  
Honesty demands that the way that last sentence was said was perhaps a trifle melodramatic, and that the mysterious lady was smirking. And the mayor missed it entirely.  
  
“Ah yes, of course, of course...” the mayor turned, recognising an old friend, “Oh, Lord de Penetion, you’re a very dashing wolf!”  
  
In the noise and hubbub, the short woman slipped away, and her freshly repainted coach – driven by a short, smelly coachman swaddled in robes and blankets despite the heat – rolled off, into the town.

* * *

   
  
The coach-park was a clearly designated area. A field outside the walls had been set aside for the coaches and horses noble guests had brought with them. And hence the fact that the mysterious armoured guest’s coach was going into the town was something which was not meant to be happening. It was entirely against the rules.  
  
However, that didn’t seem to stop the perfectly ordinary human driving the coach from not following the clearly marked signs – which had symbols as well as writing, in case of illiterate drivers. Instead, he made his way along the narrow streets behind the walls, and only got very slightly totally lost. Fortunately, the perfectly ordinary human children in the coach behind him were always there to shout insults, curses, and occasionally useful suggestions.  
  
The coach rattled into place, stopping in front of the squat building which, allegedly, the taxed wealth was being stored in. A windship was anchored beside the building, moored to its mast, but its lights were off and no crew could be seen from this angle – quite unlike the guards who were present around the solid stone structure. An astute observer would have noticed that the mere presence of guards in such force during a holiday suggested that something of notable value was being kept inside the building; it was a dead giveaway. However, the coachman was not an astute observer, and was merely doing what he was told to do.  
  
It should also be noted that the one who had been doing the telling _had_ been astute enough to realise that, and so had told the coachdriver that if there were still guards around, it was a sign that the treasure was probably in there. And if it wasn’t _that_ treasure in there but instead some other one, it was still to be looted. The teller had then sighed, and realised that she had not needed tell that to the coachdriver and his compatriots. It was a given.  
  
Finally, the coils of the local polity ground into motion as one of the guards outside the building stepped promptly up to the coach. “’ello, ‘ello, ‘ello,” he said in greeting. “You really ‘ave to be moving along, sir.”  
  
The coachman adjusted the scarf – worn despite the heat – around his neck with one gloved hand, and coughed. “But I told to go here,” he protested.  
  
“That doesn’t change things. Move on, up the way, and then we’ll talk.”  
  
The driver grumbled under his breath, but complied. The coach rolled to a stop past the solid stone structure, and the driver cleared his throat. “So, why me not allowed to park there?” he asked.  
  
“Rules,” the guard said, with a shrug. “’ey, aren’t you lot meant to be parking outside the town?”  
  
“Oh.” The coach driver shrugged. “But me got a bunch of real sick orphans in here. They got to be attending the parties!”  
  
The guard twitched the curtains open.  
  
“Yeah! We real ill!”  
  
“Cough! Splutter! Wheeze!”  
  
“Oh, the huge seal!”  
  
“Vampires ate mah babies! I mean parents!”  
  
And indeed, the coach was packed with perfectly ordinary, albeit somewhat pungent human children. That was to be expected, because as all men knew, the death of one’s parents produced a strange odour around a child – and while those uppity philosophers at Amstelredamme might have said it was poverty, real men knew that it was a sign of something much more sinister. He squinted at the seated man. “Why’d a bunch of orphans...”  
  
“They part of entertainment, silly!”  
  
With a clanking of metal, the guard relaxed. Yes, that made far more sense. “Oh, well, in that case, you’ll want to be ‘eading towards the supplies and requisitioning bay.”  
  
“Oh. Man at gate tell I I meant to go here. He have fancy hat and chain, so I not argue.”  
  
The guard sucked on his teeth. If the major had order this... well, it was more than a man’s job to argue with this sort of thing. “Right, right, then if it’s ‘is orders, you’ll need to park in the bay on the other side of the street,” he said, puffing up his chest. “This is a secure location, and that means that even ‘e can’t do that.”  
  
The coachman slumped, hand going into his clothing to recover a bottle. “Boss men,” he sighed, pulling a swig. “They so stupid. I work for real stupid v... man until few months ago. He real bloodsucker, never give us holidays even when he should have. And work us to bones.”  
  
“You said it,” the guard agreed, leaning on his pole. “I ask you, is it fair that I ‘ave to go guard this place during the festival, and so don’t get any time off. And they say that they’re going to let me have a day off later this week, but that’ll be when the party’s over, and that’s not fair! That’s not fair at all.”  
  
“Want drink?” the coachdriver said, in the spirit of the commiseration of the proletariat which had been occurring.  
  
“Don’t mind if I do!” the man replied cheerfully.  
  
Maggat hit him over the head with the bottle as hard as he could, which put an end to any later conversation. The minion hazarded a look behind him, but the now-unconscious-and-covered-in-cheap-wine guard was out of sight. “Right lads,” he hissed, “get all of you out! Stick him in alley and loot him. And ‘member, we nice sweet innocent orphans so no killing until we gots all the gold out, or the overlady will be _so_ angry at us. And Gnarl will be very upset and that hurt and can last for days until he let you go! So no screwing this up. ‘Specially you, Fettid.”  
  
The green minion looked up from where he was playing with his newfound sword, having already stolen the guard’s helmet. “Huh?”  
  
“... Maxy, Igni, Largo, Bob, Muenchy, if Fettid look like he going to kill someone when he not meant to and so get us in trouble with overlady or, worse, Gnarl, kill him. When problem go away, than you bring him back, yes?” Maggat sighed. “Less painful for him an’ us in long an’ short run.”

* * *

   
  
Steel heels clattered against cobbled streets and a deep red robe swished as Louise de la Vallière stalked through the streets of the town. She was working on keeping calm, so the illusion cast over her glowing eyes would not give her away, even as butterflies flapped in her stomach from the nerves.  
  
“A drink, sweetie?” asked a tall man, dressed in elaborately lavish clothing and a cat mask. From what she could see of the lower half of his face, he had the style of immaculately trimmed moustache in style at court at the moment, not a hair out of place. That, combined with the cut and set of his clothing, indicated that he was not a gentleman from this backwater.  
  
... well, on one hand, that was an aggressively improper action, to introduce one’s self in such a manner to a woman. But on the other hand, this was a masked party, and thus the normal rules were relaxed. But on the third hand, or possibly on a foot, she didn’t appreciate being called ‘sweetie’ in that manner. And on the fourth hand, he did look to be fairly handsome, in a somewhat primped manner – like what Scarron seemed to be going for and overshot in his demonic way – and she was feeling somewhat hot in this armour during the summer night. So she accepted the drink.  
  
“Thank you very much,” she said graciously, and forced herself to titter. “I am somewhat regretting this costume; who could have thought that it would be this hot!”  
  
“Oh, quite so, quite so.” The man looked her up and down, and Louise repressed the sudden small spike of irritation which left her wanting to set him on fire. “Perhaps, for the next party, you might want to leave off some of the unnecessary bits – I’m sure you’re gorgeous under that breastplate, and there’s no need to cover your figure in metal like that. It’d certainly be cooler to wear.”  
  
Louise de la Vallière, who was quite aware that her breastplate was doing clever things with angles and shaped metal and curves to make it worthy of the name did not respond to that. “I like your cat mask,” she said, trying to change the topic.  
  
“Oh, la! This isn’t a cat _mask_ , per se; indeed, it’s not actually a cat,” he replied, with a light-hearted chuckle, the two of them walking side by side through the thronging streets. “As a matter of fact, it’s the skinned face of a great cat from Ind, imported through Rub al Khali. Papier-mâché is so passé, you know? It’s so very dull here... from your accent, you’re a proper noble, yes, not some backwater merchant whose blood is more dilute than the wine they’re serving here?”  
  
The girl nodded. It was hard to get more noble than her, and that was a statement of fact. Something inside her stomach shifted; she was unsure whether it was pride or embarrassment from how often the de la Vallière name had appeared in the books back at the tower pinned to both heroes and villains. Mostly the latter, it had to be said. But it was something!  
  
“Well, yes, hmm,” he continued, dropping his voice. “I have to say, so far it’s been a disappointment here. This festival is...” he affected a yawn, “... boring. Drinks and fire-jugglers and dancing, oh my. And I do have to say that the most beautiful women here are the ones I bought with me... oh, thank you, my sweetling,” he said to a masked woman wearing about three handkerchiefs’’ worth of material. She looked more than a little cold, even in the summer air. “Although from what I can see of you under that armour, you have more than a little promise about you! Your costume is actually interesting, novel, quite unlike these backwater provincials with their shaped paper and painted wood.” He sighed melodramatically. “And that armour and its curves make so many promises that I long to see if are true! I really like the heels. I mean, _really_ like them.”  
  
Louise’s cheeks were ablaze. Hopefully he couldn’t see that from what little of her face was exposed, but the lecherous look in his eyes suggested a certain awareness of such things, drat him! Men! They were terrible! Montmorency’s complaints back at the Academy, in the long long ago of a few months, now made even more sense. “Th-thank you, sir,” she stuttered, when a thought struck her. “I’m s-sorry, I’ve been at school, out of contact for the last few months, and you s-sound so worldly and the like. Do you know what the current tales at court are?”  
  
The man in the cat mask smiled lazily, and chuckled to himself, as if she had said something hilarious. “Oh, certainly,” he said. “In fact, it could be said that I am one of the most informed men there is about the deeds at court. I know who’s involved with whom, and all sorts of things.” He reached out with one gloved hand, but she stepped back, and forced herself to smile.  
  
“It is just... well, I had heard rumours that... that the Viscount de Vajours, Jean-Jacques de Wardes... well, I heard that his fiancé had died tragically, and... well... he’s so...” she forced out, drawing upon how she had used to feel, “... so very brave and heroic what with everything that’s going on, and... well, I was wondering if... if you knew if he was involved with anyone?” She took a sip of the drink he had given her. It really was very good quality wine.  
  
He smiled broadly. “How adorably naive,” he said. “Yes, after the death of his fiancé, the poor man was just broken. He hasn’t got any formal arrangements, but,” the man paused, “... well, so that you don’t get your sweet little hopes up, rumour has it that he is courting Françoise Athénaïs de Mortemart, marquise of Montespan.”  
  
Louise let her shoulders slump – and it wasn’t entirely false. This was confirmation from someone at court, not just a demon. It wasn’t that she had harboured that hope that maybe Scarron had been lying or wrong about that; it was just that... well. Never mind. “Well, th-thank you, sir,” she said. “I am afraid I have to go see a friend who I am meant to be meeting, but I may see you again later.” Not if she could help it, but it was the polite thing to say. “Good evening.”  
  
“So soon?” he asked, perching on the edge of the fountain. “But I was enjoying your adorable conversation.”  
  
“I really have to go, really really!” she squeaked, darting off into the crowd and dropping her glass in her haste. And the reason for the change in her behaviour was that she had seen a familiar brown-haired, red-ribboned head. Which meant that she had to get out of sight.  
  
Heart pounding, Louise ducked around the corner! What was she doing here? What was that filthy-minded, indecent, improper, unrighteous female doing at this festival? Just because she had been going here anyway... when she had been attacked by a dark force of Evil, she should have gone back home in tears, not hanging around! And she’d be able to recognise that Louise was not actually wearing a costume, but was instead – in a purely technical sense – a dark force of evil coming to loot and despoil.  
  
She had wasted enough time already. She had to do what she needed to do, and then it wouldn’t matter if people recognised her as an overlady. Looting canapés and a fresh drink as she went, Louise de la Vallière went down the streets to the river, in a search for her destination quayside.

* * *

  
The pack of minions scrambled up onto the rooftop, their long, ape-like arms aiding them in their climb. Some of them were trailing heavy packs and equipment, removed from the cart.  
  
There were guards on the roof.  
  
And then fairly quickly, after the small group of greens led by Fettid had done their work, there were no guards left. Well, maybe there were. It all depended on one’s precise philosophical position _vis a vis_ the nature of death and whether a man who had had several smelly goblins stick poisoned blades into painful points of his body and cut his throat still counted as a man. But alas, with no concrete empirical evidence on the nature of personhood and death – well, unless you went and asked a necromancer, and they were shifty bastards a little too fond of dead bodies, to a man and woman – all that could be said was that there were lots of corpses on the rooftop, which got promptly looted.  
  
“We pretty sneaky, all in all,” Scyl said in a satisfied tone. The blue was perched on top of the ledge, wrapped in his black cape. It was only ruined a little by the girl’s bonnet he was wearing. “Now?”  
  
Maxy nodded. “Now is stage two of plan,” he said. “Sneaky like little mices, we make hole in roof with pick-axes.”  
  
“An’, I would like to say,” Maggat added, “anyone one of you who make too much noise – ‘specially the ones who haven’t been all sneaky-like before – is going to taste my fist. And I bigger than most of you and the overlady say I do good job, so we got that clear?”  
  
The other minions gulped.  
  
“Now,” he continued, “Igni, get them fireworks set up. The mistress want to know when we find gold. And...”  
  
Scyl interrupted him. “Hey, Maggat? You think there gold on ship?” he said, pointing at the unlit windship.  
  
“I think we not paid to think right now, so we need to find gold before overlady get angry and set us on fire,” the brown said brusquely. He paused for a moment. “But I also think that if we get chance, we should take little looky inside, and take stuff. It like bonus...” he concentrated, “... ob-jar-sive on mission, and as we know, if overlady happy because of us, she reward us. It called ‘carrot and stick’. If you do bad, she only give you carrot as weapon, but if you do well, she give you stick. Maybe even with nail in it.”  
  
“I not think that actually how saying goes,” the luckless Maxy tried, before he was hit around the head, and presented with a pick-axe.  
  
“Just for that, you start by digging first,” Maggat growled. “That was po-etical thinkin’.”

* * *

  
  
Silently, lights extinguished and the bodies of the original crew disposed of overboard, a river barge drifted into the dock. Warehouses and high fences helped hide this area from the streets, keeping things out of sight and out of mind. The dark figures manning it, shrouded in stolen too-large sailor costumes, kept remarkably quiet as they helped paddle the vessel in the final approach, aided by blue shapes in the water helping push. And as they expected, a steel-armoured figure was waiting for them.  
  
Light bobbing over his head, Gnarl looked up at his dark mistress, long shadows painted over his face. “Ah, my lady,” he said. “Everything went as planned. The hold is packed with minions, ready to plunder and pillage, and you merely need to move the construction equipment here,” he nodded towards the next dock along, where the skeletal shapes of the cranes were waiting to be moved from where they had done their work, “and we will take it downstream and back through to the tower.” Even as he said that, a horde of small, smelly goblinoids was ready and unloading itself from the barge.  
  
“Good work, Gnarl,” Louise said.  
  
“For Evil,” he said, half-bowing.  
  
The girl left him behind, waving the assigned minions forward to the warehouse by the docks she had seen on her exploration. A gesture, and they swarmed onto the two guards by the entrance; clearly, the guard was reduced here because of the party. A bit of her disliked killing... being responsible for killing men like this, but they were working for the comte de Mott. By Brimiric law, that meant they were traitors. Or, at least, they would be when she rescued Princess Henrietta, restored her to her rightful place, and they had all the Council declared guilty of treason.  
  
But the point remained, even if they weren’t _technically_ traitors yet, they were traitors who had only avoided righteous justice so far because the head of the royal courts was among their corrupt number. Which made it morally acceptable... no, it even made it good, because it was always good to punish traitors.  
  
Even as those thoughts ran through her mind and the minions bickered over the muskets – and wasn’t that enough proof of the corruption of the comte de Mott, that he could afford to equip warehouse guards with muskets? – she marched over to the doors. Her attempts to throw them open were stymied by the fact that they were locked, but luckily she had the universal lock pick known as ‘lots of minions’.  
  
“Now,” Louise said, smiling with malevolent intent, “if you will notice – as I did when exploring this town – the trading house here owned by the comte de Mott specialises in moving certain volatile oils and perfumes up river for the trade with Germania. This is a very profitable affair, because as we all know Germanians have a poor sense of personal hygiene and eat too much pickled sausage, and so will pay a lot for good perfume. Which means that this warehouse has, as I expected, no small amount of stock present. Now,” she said, “who can tell me what that means?”  
  
There was general confusion among the minions.  
  
“Stock is what you put in water to make soup,” one wearing a chef’s hat contributed. “I eat one cube of it. It nice, but need beer to wash it down. Or wine.”  
  
“Is ‘profiterole’ something to do with priestys?” another asked.  
  
Once again, Louise observed, she had overestimated her audience. Especially since she had needed to send the brighter, and almost universally older minions out for the other tasks she had set them, which left her with the ones which were dumb by minion standards. Which was also coincidentally dumb by the standards of, say, sheep. Or mould on cheese.  
  
Not ponies, though. Few things were more stupid than ponies. Dumb things that wouldn’t leave her alone in peace and quiet. So she had to set them on fire! For their own g... no, that wasn’t true. For her own good, at least, which was a rather more compelling reason than whatever a bunch of stupid animals wanted.  
  
“I mean,” she said, with a weary sigh, “that it is full of things which will burn nicely when we set it on fire.” She paused.  
  
“Uhh, you mean...”  
  
She downgraded again, just in case. “Burny happens?” she hazarded.  
  
“Big burny?”  
  
“... yes,” the girl said, momentarily reflecting on how months of exposure to normal minions had done marvels for her patience. Once, she would have got furious at such egregious stupidity. But getting angry at minions for being stupid was much like getting angry at water for being wet. Something she only did once in a while, when it was more irritation than she could cope with right now or it got in her way. The rest of the time, it was sort of the background state of the world, and it would be jolly silly if she went around shouting at random rivers for their dampness.  
  
She gestured with the gauntlet, curling her fingers and drawing the minions – who were already starting to look vandalism-inclined – back to her. “But the fire comes later,” she ordered. “Now, that we have confirmed that the perfumes are here, first we will need to go to the next quay along and move the construction equipment onto the barge. And you need to get it done before the other ones get the fireworks set off, or I will have you all flogged. And I also won’t let you watch the fire. And I will _personally_ oversee the confiscation of looted equipment from those who fail me!”

* * *

  
  
The red moonlight streamed in down through the narrow hole cut in the roof. There was the squeaking of a wheel, and the light was momentarily blotted out as something small and remarkably pungent was lowered down. Muttered voices and the momentary flash of a dark lantern were lost under the noise from the streets below.  
  
“Lower,” the whisper came. “Come ons, you slackers.”  
  
The wheel squeaked again. “You can see it, Fettid?” one of the cranking figures asked.  
  
Lantern light revealed itself from the hole, dancing over the inside of the solid stone building. “Yes,” the green hissed back up. The light shone upon gold bars and solid crates. “Shinies are there.”  
  
“Right,” the largest shadowy figure at the crank said, “we do what the Overlady said the plan was. Fettid, you grabs one bar at a time, and we crank you up. Igni?”  
  
“Yep?” another figure said, standing by a collection of tubes. There was a small pop, as it lit a flame on the end of one of its fingers.  
  
“Make sky-boom happens and mistress know we find gold for her.”  
  
“Oh yay,” the other figure said gleefully, lowering its burning finger towards the end of the tubes.  
  
There was a crackle, and a whoosh, as four rockets shot up into the sky, their exhausts coincidentally setting their igniter on fire. That did not seem to phase him, however, as he “oooh’d” and “aaah’d” at the explosions in the sky.  
  
Which was only matched by the thunderous detonation elsewhere in the town, by the river. A fireball blossomed in the night, rising up in a oily belch of flames. In the general consensus of the now-very-drunk townfolk, it was pretty, although all the alarm bells and running guards was a bit of a party pooper.

* * *

   
  
See! It’s now two days after “two days ago”. We caught up with the _in media res_ section from the chapter before last. And it’s funny that we’re talking about things catching up, because appropriately the narrative attention is shifted over to Louise de la Vallière, who was stood by the gleefully burning, very nice smelling wreckage of the warehouse owned by the comte de Mott. Against the fires, she was a dark silhouette, her eyes patches of glowing light shining out from under her helmet. In the inferno, flaming goblins ran and played in the heat, throwing even more fire around and generally having the most fun that they had enjoyed in years. Down the river, a barge floated, laden down with plundered construction equipment, and manned by a minion crew.  
  
Decency prevents one from observing that the dark lady was cackling.  
  
She was, however, interrupted by a cry of “My warehouse!” from a tall, muscular man wearing a cat-mask, who – despite panting from lack of breath – nevertheless managed to properly cast a spell which had water rise up from the river to control the volatile blaze.  
  
“Oh,” Louise said. Then, “Oh. _Oh. Oooooh._ ”  
  
She grinned. My, this _was_ a wonderful party, no two ways about it. Softly, she chanted to herself. A ball of fire popped into existence in her hand, concealed behind her back. “My goodness,” she said, advancing on the mage – the comte de Mott – slowly. “Whatever could have happened, s...”  
  
“You!” The jet of water collapsed as the man spun and pointed his wand at her. “You! You did this! You’re evil! It’s not a disguise at all, is it! The mark of evil is in your eyes!”  
  
Ah. The eyes. Yes. She must have got excited at some point and broken the illusion.  
  
Drat.


	12. A Taxing Affair 3-4

_“Fire. According to some, it is the most evil of all the elements. Some people think that just because a vast number of evil overlords use fire as their primary element and the infernal Abyss burns with dark flame, fire is somehow wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth! Why, I burn heretics and sinners and witches and schismatics and the undead and the damned and the Evil and demons and werewolves and wingéd men and blasphemers and children who disrespect their parents and individuals who work on sacred rest days and orcs and goblins and warlocks and water spirits and minotaurs and dragons and manticores and great cats and flying serpents from the Mystic East and the like to death – or sometimes to re-death – every day! And so fulfil the sacred work of Good! To speak out against the sacred element of Fire is no less than blasphemy!_  
  
–  Saint Pyrene of Pompeia

* * *

Fires burned in the night. The perfume warehouse was a bonfire which put lesser celebrations to shame, a pillar of flame which radiated raw heat. And on the street by it stood two figures. One of them; short, armoured in dark steel and robed in blood-red, held a ball of unnaturally pink fire in her left hand. And the other, wearing a cat-mask, had to throw himself out of the way with all possible haste to avoid the fireball, which instead sizzled on by and hit a completely different building.  
  
“Ooops,” Louise said. That was what Gnarl had said. Aim for their _feet_ when throwing fireballs at people. That way they got caught in the blast radius, and – or so he had claimed – it was highly amusing to watch people dance around with their toes ablaze.  
  
“Marine Arc!”  
  
And then she had to duck under a horizontal slash of blue-green water which whistled at head height. If she had been taller... drat, drat, drat, that man was _fast_ with how he got his spells out. She started to chant again, the fireball forming in her hand, but another barked word from the cat-faced man interrupted her flow, as a low-sweeping wave swept her legs out from under her.  
  
All her breath was forced out of her with a whoosh as she hit the ground like an accident in a foundry, and it was only her hurried roll out of the way which avoided its follow up. Rolling over and over, she tried to pull herself up, and felt her stomach muscles scream at the effort.  
  
Something blew up in the warehouse, spraying sweet-smelling burning oil over the street and the nearby houses. The blast knocked her down prone again, and the hot air left her choking. Louise felt the warm patter against her armour and covered the exposed part of her face with a hand. Founder, she was so thankful she wasn’t half-naked. So very thankful, she thought as burning oil sloughed off her helmet and pauldrons. She shook herself like a dog, sending small patches of fire to join the ones which already littered the cobbles like grass.  
  
It was uncomfortably hot, the perfumed smoke was horribly to breathe in, and if there was something else which was going to blow up in there, she wanted to be well clear of it. Hopefully the comte de Mott would have perished in the...  
  
There was a hiss of steam, and a jet of water whooshed out through the fire, cutting through the smoke. Fortunately, it did not appear to be aimed at her, or – if it was – the man was not too good a shot. Or was feeling a mite distracted by the fire.  
  
“Vile force of Evil!” the comte cried out. She could see him now; drenched – he’d soaked himself to ward off fire – and singed. “Do you have _any_ idea how much this cost? And my warehouse! And my... Crushing Wave!”  
  
Louise saw the oncoming wall of water. This was going to hurt.  
  
And, serendipity! She was right.

* * *

“Ooooh! Pretty boom!” a brown said, staring across the town at the fire-rose blossoming down by the river.  
  
“Get back to work!”  
  
“My arms’re tired!”  
  
“Keep crankin’, you idiots,” Maggat growled, thumping the slacker at the crank, as laden down with gold and sacks of coinage Fettid appeared again, only to be sent down for more.. “If we get the gold out, we can go loot other stuff an’ watch the overlady’s fires.”  
  
Maxy cleared his throat. “Hey, Maggy, maybe it’d help ‘em more if I do a song to motivate them.”  
  
He was cuffed around the head for his troubles. “You heard Maxy,” Maggat said, “if you don’t do it faster, he’ll start playin’ music and then we’ll _all_ be sufferin’.”  
  
With grumbling and a few slaps, Fettel was raised up on his rope, two bags of coins – each one the same size as his torso – in his hands. “That’s ‘em all!” he chirped up.  
  
“You sure?” Maggat said suspiciously. “You pretty stupid, but I hope you not stupid enough that we get in trouble for leaving gold behind.”  
  
“Not lootin’ everything you can is against the Minion Code,” Maxy agreed.  
  
“Unless orders is orders,” Igni said, tongue sticking up as he practiced juggling fireworks.  
  
Maggat shrugged. “Well, yeah. Orders is orders and... Igni, where you get those fireworks? I thought you launch our message ones?”  
  
“Found ‘em lying around,” the red said with a shrug. “When you was doin’ stuff, I sneaky-like went lookin’. I was thinkin’ we could set this buildin’ on fire afterwards.”  
  
“How comes he gets to be a slacker?” one of the browns at the crank asked.  
  
“’Cause he a red, so he puny and not good at liftin’,” Maggat growled, “an’ also because we lot are older an’ more ‘perienced than you gobos so we is smarter and better at usin’ our in-it-at-ive. And Igni very good at findin’ boomy stuff.”  
  
Igni grinned. “An’ I set to a buildin’, so we have distraction when gettin’ away. Overlady is best mistress or master in years, ‘cause she gets how fire is best thing ever for everything.”  
  
Maxy pursed his lips. “Well, I think we getting distracted. So we just need to get the stuff out, right? So I guess we gotta go take our dirty luck-re out by coach, and then we can go helpsie the Overlady.”  
  
Scyl stirred himself from where he was gazing out over the city. As one of the blue-skinned variety of his kin, his intellect – such as such a thing might be said to apply to a non-Gnarl minion – was even less focussed than the other varieties, and as a result, often wandered. “Maggat,” he said slowly, “I thinks they took our coach and our horsies. They tied their leggsies together with iron bars and then dragged them away because it was,” and he focussed, “parked ill eagle lie.”  
  
Maggat glowered, stomping over to check. “But we didn’ts park it on any sick birds,” he muttered. “You was meant to be watching the coach, Scyl!”  
  
“I did,” the blue objected. “I watch it all the time, until they take it where I can’t see it no more. And I no see any sick birds neither.”  
  
“Maybe they wasn’t very bright,” Maxy suggested, drifting over. “What now? If we don’t has a coach, the plan’s not goin’ to work.”  
  
The two brown minions’ gaze was drawn inevitably towards the nearby moored windship, to be joined a few seconds later by Scyl when he got his mind in gear and into the same frame of reference as the others.

* * *

Wet, mildly singed, and aching from the wave which had slammed her into a wall, Louise de la Vallière pulled herself to her feet, groaning. She had water up her nose. Through clenched teeth, she grated out the words for her fireball spell, igniting a ball above one hand. After a moment’s thought, she repeated it, and was gratified to see that she could create a fireball for the other hand too. Why hadn’t she bought her staff with her?  
  
Oh yes. Because it was heavy, and she hadn’t planned to be fighting anyone. Well, that was a mistake she wasn’t going to make again.  
  
Ha. Ha. Ha. And oh Founder that was another wall of water coming and... she exhaled onto one of the fireballs, sending a jet of pink fire out which collided with the wave. She flinched as a hot mist washed over her and condensed against her armour – which was getting uncomfortably hot – but the fire had blunted the main attack.  
  
And her body, which had decided that her mind was being stupid and thinking when it should have been fighting breathed onto the fireball again. The flame rushed out through the mist, adding a pink cast to the firelit vapours, before they were countered by another water spell.  
  
“I’m going to get every last ecu of costs out of your hide!” Mott snarled, in between spells. “You God-damned flirt! Leading a man on like that!”  
  
“I never asked you to pay attention to me!” Louise screamed back as she hurled a fireball overarm at him, smashing a shield of ice and hastily caught by a last-ditch wall of water.  
  
“What did you expect, dressing like that? A man can’t control himself when confronted by someone in such interesting armour which promised so much! Evil! Evil!”  
  
So began a duel of fire against water through flames and mist and smoke, tossed by gales and the waves of force when the two of them clashed. Louise didn’t know why no one else was intervening, but considering the conditions it was likely that the lesser mages were probably trying to control the warehouse fire – which was spreading rapidly – and commoners simply couldn’t fight in these conditions.  
  
She side-stepped an ice-shard, sweating, and retreated again. Step by step she was being forced back down the street, and her lack of magical skill was costing her dear. All she had was this one spell, and the constant salvos of fast-cast dot-ranked spells from the water mage were more than she could handle.  
  
“Pissed!” something hissed at her from a nearby alleyway, which revealed itself to be a small group of minions. “Gnarl say, what taking you so... oh wait, you in fight against boss-man of town, yes?”  
  
“Yes!” Louise snapped, darting into the alleyway.  
  
The brown minion – it wasn’t one she thought she recognised – pouted. “No fair! Why you no invite us? If you tell us, we have fun fighty fight!”  
  
Louise screamed in frustration. “Gnarl,” she yelled into her gauntlet, “help me out! The comte de Mott is here! Right now!”  
  
“ _... no, Licket, put that oar down... oh, your ladyship! Well done! You have found one of your targets!_ ”  
  
“He’s too hard!” Louise hissed, in-between gasping for breath. She could feel the mental fatigue, feel her tiredness which was telling her that she had little willpower for this battle remaining, and the comte de Mott – curse him – was a triangle mage. He could outlast her.  
  
“ _Oh, don’t worry your Evil little head,_ ” Gnarl advised. “ _He is a dramatic, fated adversary! And that means, like all such beings, he has a critical weak spot. You just need to look for it, and once you have found it… why, defeating him will be triviality itself. Like with fire dragons; when they open their mouth to breath fire, they’re vulnerable! As well as their underbelly, of course. Some people might question why a flying lizard which spends a lot of time attacking people on the ground has such an armour-less belly… but then again, dragons are very badly designed creatures. Why else would they be so prone to blowing up when you feed them reds?_ ”  
  
“That’s completely useless advice,” Louise screamed, poking her head out only to have to duck a hail of knife-ice shards. “He’s a human! Humans don’t have convenient weak spots!”  
  
“ _Just set fire to his head then,_ ” her advisor said calmly. “ _That should do it._ ”  
  
“I’m trying to do that! It’s not working! He keeps on blocking!”  
  
“ _An interesting fact about most creatures smaller than a dragon,_ ” Gnarl noted, “ _is that they tend to have problems concentrating when they’re being swarmed by minions. And dragons only really are too stupid to notice that something is beating them in the head with a sharp object. Brain the size of a pea._ ”  
  
Right. Right. Right. Think, think... yes. If he was shooting at minions, he wouldn’t be shooting at her. She glanced over the six minions in the alley... four brown-skinned, and two horned reds. And they were the even-less-competent type, because they hadn’t acquired the festoonery of weaponry and random junk which the more experienced ones seemed to have.  
  
... it was pretty strange that sticking a pumpkin on its head seemed to make a minion brighter, but Louise wasn’t going to argue with results. Even if they were stupid results.  
  
“Right!” she ordered the minions. “Reds, stay here in cover, and hurl fireballs at the comte de Mott when he’s not looking at you! When he’s looking at you, hide. Annoy him and distract him... and yes, set his head on fire! Browns, follow me!” She paused. “I mean, browns, go out ahead of me!”  
  
No point in sticking her head out first. And in case they needed any extra motivation, she added, “If you kill him, you’ll get to keep his clothes as loot! And wear them, or do whatever else you want to do with them!”  
  
One of the minions shuffled its feet. “Even his maskie?” it asked.  
  
“Yes! Just go!”

* * *

The guard’s body hit the ground, followed a second later by his head – which did not roll very far, because the human head is not particularly good at rolling. Fettid did not pause, however, and sprang up the mast, vaulting off it to drop blade-first onto the skull of the watchman who had come to investigate the wet noise.  
  
The goblinoid creature grinned aimlessly, as its eyes scanned the deck. The runes on the back of its left hand were a dull, eye-aching glow which onlookers seemed to skip over, and their presence filled the mind of the creature. Mostly with ways of killing, maiming, and otherwise inflicting damage with any of the several weapons he had acquired.  
  
Okay, pretty much exclusively with that knowledge. It wasn’t as if there was competition for space.  
  
And to reinforce that point, Fettid drew a pair of daggers from underneath his stinking armpits – considerably raising the chance of infection for those injured by them – and hurled them overarm at the last man on deck, who had been using the chance to empty his bladder over the side. ‘Emptying his veins’ off the starboard bow was probably not what he had intended, but it was what fate had decreed should happen. Or at least something which passed for fate in a poor light.  
  
“Pissed,” the minion hissed down the anchor chain. “I kills them all.”  
  
“You mean ‘psst’. Don’t think there are drinkies up there,” Maxy whispered back up, before there was a yelp as Maggat hit him. “’Least not any good oneses,” he muttered.  
  
By minion-chain, the loot was passed down from the roof and up the chain onto the windship, bypassing all guards not currently dead and stripped of all worldly possessions. There was a moment of controversy as the ship’s cat protested at the presence of minions on board, but it was bought down and hat-ised with only one minion fatality. And the luckless new brown-skinned minion was bought back, so it didn’t really matter.  
  
“So,” Maggat said. “We got the sky-boatie. Now, how we fly it?”  
  
“Bog used to know, but he got eaten by bloody vampire,” Maxy contributed. “Poor Bog. So I guess we have to make this up as we go along.”  
  
“I can fly this,” Scyl declared, taking hold of the wheel. The runes on his left hand began to pulse, slowly, as he dramatically furled his long black cape around himself. “I have the knowingness-ness-itude. It’s like a water boatie. Only of the sky.”  
  
Igni shrugged. “You a blue, so if you say all boaties are alike, I believe you,” he said. “Now, blunderbuss on the front cannon!”  
  
“No there isn’t,” Maxy objected.  
  
“Not yet,” the horned minion said with a grin. “I got _good ideas_ for this boatie.”  
  
“Wait just...” Maggat paused, and began to count, moving onto the skeletal hands on his belt, “wait just six-ten moments! You a blue! You spacey and not good at thinkin’ ‘bout stuff in front of you and...”  
  
“I needs minions on the right and left... no, the runey is telling me that they are called starboard and port... cannons,” Scyl said, dreamily. “It has a friendly voice, and is my friend. And so I need my other friends on the cannons.”  
  
“Me!” Maggat and Maxy said at the same time.  
  
“Rest of you, go do what I say. We start by pulling up the anchor...”

* * *

“Go go g-urk!” yelled the first minion to leave the cover. The “urk” was the noise produced when a water-blade took its head off, and left its spasming corpse on the floor. Louise followed closely behind, trying not to look at the twitching body, and instead occupied her time with something more productive.  
  
Like lobbing a fireball at the comte de Mott, which... well, admittedly, it missed because she was trying to aim while also trying to cross the street as fast as she could, but at least it landed in front of him. Which had the dual effects of throwing up thick white snow-like spoke, and also aborting the spell he was trying to cast from the lung-burning heat.  
  
“You two, left!” Louise ordered as she ran as the red minions began to hurl an inaccurate but enthusiastic barrage of fireballs in the general direction of the comte. They were not noticeably adding to the amount of things which were on fire in the area, but every little helped. And the zip and whoosh of the red minion’s fireballs had to be distracting when you were trying to cast.  
  
The heat of the burning street was like a blow against her face as she ran as fast as she could, jinking to try to avoid whatever might be aimed at her through the steam and smoke. Her armoured feet clattered and splashed through burning perfume which was pooling in the gutters. Ice came out of no-where; she hurdled the frozen wall which appeared in front of her even as the minion following her hit it head-first.  
  
“Woo hoo!” A small, brown projectile sprung onto the comte de Mott’s back from behind. Screaming, the man flailed wildly, trying to protect his head from the club blows that the minion was raining on him. Stumbling back into a wall momentarily stunned the creature on his back; enough for him to get his wand facing it. A jet of water sent it flying off into the air, and the comte turned, looking for his opponent, only to receive a desperate steel-gauntleted punch in the chest.  
  
It was somewhat less effective than Louise might have hoped, because the man did not in fact go down like a stunned pig. Instead, he gasped in pain. And then lowered his shoulder and threw himself at her.  
  
This was somewhat of a problem, because she was petite, delicate, slender, and all kinds of other female-complimentary terms and thus barely over a metre and a half, and he was a fully grown man breaking two metres. So unsurprisingly, she was knocked down. And then pinned.  
  
“I was a wrestler at school, donchaknow?” the comte grated. “Muscular men, oiled up, grappling and hugging and fighting for dominance... oh, I learned all kinds of things in those days.” He shifted his weight, so his forearm lay over Louise’s throat, at the gap where only mail protected her. “This isn’t how I wanted to get in this position with you,” he said, almost casually, “but I suppose it’ll have to do.” It was a sign of how much stronger he was that he could manage to reach up and pick up his wand while also keeping her pinned with just one arm.  
  
Her mind had gone blank. She honestly, really, certainly, really didn’t know what to do. He was stronger than her and had her arms pinned and every thought had left her head and...  
  
Louise de la Vallière did what came naturally to her. Her steel-armoured knee rose up into the groin of the comte de Mott.  
  
The metal hit the meat.  
  
The man made a noise best represented in text as ‘ghneee’.  
  
His eyes crossed to such an extent that he appeared to be inspecting the tip of his own nose in great detail, insofar as he could do such a thing through the tears of pain. He sagged and went limp, collapsing onto her. The weight was not a casual concern, and she squirmed out from under him, rolling away.  
  
Despite the pain, he was in enough control to do the same. Louise and the comte began to chant at the same time. He was faster. Before her thrown fireball could intercept his crouched-over form, it was up and away, being born away on a tendril of water which lifted him up onto the roof of a building which was hardly on fire at all.  
  
“So!” he snapped. “You may have a temporary advantage! But hear this! I am not defeated. And the forces of Good will see you cast down! Yes, indeed! And I will recover the cost of every least insult and damage you have inflicted on me from your body, woman, indeed I...”  
  
What he was about to say was interrupted by a roar like a cannon. And the top half of the body of Alexander Nicholas de Mott, the comte de Mott, was suddenly missing in action. Perhaps it had an acrimonious split with his legs. Maybe his feet decided that they were sick of being trodden on by the higher aristocracy, and convinced everything else below the waist to cast off their oppressors. After all, with his head gone, they had nothing to lose but their chins.  
  
Louise could merely stare at the sight. She was... fairly sure that she hadn’t done that. Probably. When she miscast magic, things exploded, but they didn’t get torn in half!  
  
“I tell you that ball-and-chain is right thing to use!” a minion said both smugly and loudly. “Next time listen to Igni when I tell you best way to killy thing with cannon!”  
  
“Mistress!” something yelled from above her, which was followed rapidly by a rope. Which nearly hit her. “Grab the ropeses and then we can go!”  
  
“Unless you still has thing to do here, because we can go whenever...” began another minionly voice, before there was a yelp.  
  
Louise looked up, and saw the windship overhead. Even at this distance, she could see Maggat’s head and skull pauldrons.  
  
“Where did you get that!” she yelled up at the ship.  
  
“Looted it! Guardsies stole our coach, so we take ship so you not be angry with us! Now, got to go! We set fire to a few things on way, and Igni toss fireworks down onto guardhouses, so they have problems getting us and we can watch pretty fire on way out!”  
  
The other minions down here on the ground who were... well, still alive were already squirming up the rope. Considering the state of the street around her and the sound of another explosion from the perfume warehouse, Louise de la Vallière felt it might be a very good idea to join them. And as the windship sailed away from the town – showing remarkable skill for something being piloted by minions – she slumped down in pain and exhaustion and watched the red-painted night behind her.

* * *

Charcoal held firmly in hand, Louise stared at the drawn face of the Comte de Mott hung up in the white-washed room she referred to as her ‘drawing room’. Slowly and deliberately, she crossed it out.  
  
“So,” she said, trying to sound cheerful, “one down. Three to go, yes?”  
  
“Indeed, your evilness,” Gnarl said, obsequiously. “In addition, your treasury is in a considerably more healthy state – which is to say, you have a treasury made up of more than small change – the minions on the barges have recovered the construction equipment and work can begin on the repairs, and, of course, you now have a windship.”  
  
That had been a wonderful stroke of luck, the girl had to agree. She would need to see the minions who had done that rewarded. Positive reinforcement, that was the way her father said you did it! Reward a man who saved your life, because that way he’ll be encouraged to do it again. And while they hadn’t exactly saved her life, they had stopped Mott getting away, and gotten her the ship and the gold – and it wasn’t like buying some novelty hats for them or whatever minions liked should be that expensive.  
  
He cleared his throat. “However, my lady, I do not believe that any of us wish to repeat that scenario again. That nearly went wrong on several levels.”  
  
“It was a good plan,” Louise protested. “It’s just that dratted Mott showed up.”  
  
“And the guards taking the coach which was to move the gold out of the way?” Gnarl asked.  
  
“I had a plan for that!” Louise protested. “They were going to throw the money into the river, and then we could have come back later and recovered it. It wasn’t a bad back-up!”  
  
“Still, your evilness, the bit where you tried to attack the comte de Mott on your own was not well done. You are an overlady, not some bruiser in a steel suit! And we are your loyal minions; we are your second arms and your second legs. You need to stop going off on your own, and rely on us.”  
  
“Yes, yes, of course,” the girl said. Louise took a breath, and said what had been on her mind. “Should I... really have killed him like that? Well, let him be killed. Shouldn’t he have... have got to go back with a message of warning or something? It feels... a bit empty. I didn’t... get to kill him, and... and it was quick, and...” she trailed off, not wanting to mention any personal feelings of squeamishness or guilt about burning down a fair chunk of a town.  
  
“Oh no, of course not, my lady,” Gnarl said, with a hint of irritation in his voice. “Some overlords are under the mistaken belief that they should let Heroes escape, to stew in their bitterness and frustration. It is a fine theory, I must admit, but hard experience has taught me that this just results in them going out and killing a dragon or an orc warlord or something like that, getting their hands on some new magic sword, training up their skills, and then coming back and murdering the overlord. Usually with ‘magic sword to the face’.”  
  
“Ah,” Louise said. No, she wouldn’t want that. And the comte de Mott had been quite a pig, in an obnoxiously handsome way.  
  
“It is very annoying,” the elderly minion said. “You would think that they would have the decency to get themselves killed by the dragon or be crippled when you cut off their arm, but no! No, they always manage to kill the dragon and get the treasure which allows them to defeat the overlord, or find a magical arm which just happens to replace their old one! What is the point of crippling injuries if they are not actually crippled, that’s what I have to ask you? Magical replacement arms are so very annoying, and yet they clearly hand them out like toffee to defeated heroes! Where do they even get them?”  
  
Louise shrugged, wincing from the pain in her muscles. “I think they can make them in Amstelredamme. It’s a very advanced place, because of the university, which means there are lots and lots of mages there. Like Eleanore. And that means that they have more than their fair share of bad-tempered geniuses specialising in odd fields. Like Eleanore.”  
  
“Oh well, then remember to kill foes,” Gnarl said, with an exasperated sigh. “Places like that usually only last a hundred years or so before they get destroyed by either Good or Evil, but they’re so very annoying while they last. Nothing is quite as obnoxious as some little philosopher playing with lightning bringing back a long-dead Hero who you thought was out of the way. Evil has much more reliable ways to ensure that you come back from the dead, and it’s really not fair play for Good to steal them.”  
  
“I see,” Louise said, and sighed. “Well, Gnarl, I’m sure you will want to go and count all the money personally and start to plan for how I can start the repair work...”  
  
“As a matter of fact,” the elderly minion began smugly, "I happen to have come up with..."  
  
“... but,” Louise continued, “that can wait until the morning. Or possibly tomorrow morning. Whatever. I expect you will have plans drawn up by then. I haven’t slept at all and I think it’s sunrise. So I’m going to the kitchens to get some cheese, and when I get to my quarters I expect a hot bath to have been run, because I smell of rust and smoke and burning perfume which is _far_ too strong. If that is not done, I will be very dissatisfied. And after my bath, I will go to bed.”  
  
She yawned.  
  
“Just so you know, anything which disturbs me for a lesser reason than the tower being under attack will be flogged until they are half-dead. And if they can be brought back to life, they will be flogged to death, and then brought back, and then flogged almost to the point of death. _Do I make myself clear?_ ”  
  
“Maliciously so, your evilness,” Gnarl said, bowing. His eyes tracked her out of the room. “I do believe she is blossoming,” he said to himself. “Like a spiky, malevolent, thorny, poisonous rose.”  



	13. A Heroic Interlude

**A Heroic Interlude**

* * *

The darkness of the long-sealed tomb stank of grave-mould and rot. The small circle of light at the centre was a valiant point of righteousness in the night, holding forth against the shambling undead and leering goblinoids.  
  
“I told you it was a mistake to go into this place in the middle of the night!” Montmorency de Montmorency shouted through clenched teeth. “I told you! Didn’t I tell you? I told you! We should have waited until morning!”  
  
There was a sound like an iron foundry falling down a flight of stairs, and a small mob of brazen golems rampaged through the dead. Dry bones and dusty flesh turned out to be somewhat compromised in structural integrity when solid brass animated statues charged into and over the top of them.  
  
“Aha! Taste the beauty of the rose, vile monsters!” Guiche de Gramont called out, sweeping his wand around to lead his shining horde in their assault.  
  
And it was hardly worth noting that the constructs were getting more kills from standing on goblins and zombies than they were with their rather unskilled swordplay.  
  
Fire flared in the dark, washing against the wall and leaving only burnt shadows. “Mont!” called out Kirche von Zerbst, as she alternated between lobbing lesser fireballs down the corridor and hacking at the closer foes with her long-handled curved blade, “ice the floor of the right corridor!” A goblin fell screaming as she cut its arm off. “More zombies down that way!”  
  
“Moving the golems to get the gate!” Guiche interrupted, his pack of metal warriors swarming to obscure the entry and crank the lever which inched the ponderous door closed.   
  
“Thanks! Tabby, wight forwards! Take it out!”  
  
Eyes dead, the blue-haired girl who called herself ‘Tabitha’ picked up one of the long poles the four schoolchildren had been carrying with them, and tapped it with her wand, muttering a short incantation. It shot out of her grasp like it had been fired from a cannon, piercing three goblins before lodging itself in a lunching figure wearing a richly decorated helmet covered in long-rotted plumes.  
  
“Target eez down,” the blue-haired girl said flatly in a strong Gallian accent, before scything down a group of fleeing goblins with a burst of ice.  
  
And then there was nothing alive or undead left in the corridor, save for the children and their brass golems. Kirche put down her blade and dug in a pouch at her belt to recover a handkerchief to wipe her blood, soot and sweat-streaked face. “Right,” she said, “looks like there’s the gold-leaf door the old man up ahead told us.” She stretched out her shoulders, her leather armour creaking, and returned the dirty handkerchief back to her belt. “Anyone get hurt in that?”  
  
Guiche winced, tapping his breastplate. “Feeling a bit bruised under this; one of the goblins shot me. Scratched the armour. The padding took most of the force, but I’m going to be aching there tomorrow morning. No,” he said, raising his hand, “save your magic, Monmon. We’ve still got the liche in there, and he’ll be more of a threat.”  
  
“Fine,” the blonde said. “Though... shouldn’t we return to the surface, and wait until the morning? The dead’ll be weaker when the sun’s up, and we can rest up.”  
  
The boy shook his head. “No,” he said, “we have to rescue the count before the liche can do whatever evil deed’s he’s planning. If he’s dead by the time we get there because we stopped for a rest, it’ll be our fault.”  
  
“I’m with Guiche,” Kirche agreed. “The reward for getting him back alive is well over twice than he’s worth dead.”  
  
Montmorency sighed; a noise in which ‘money-grubbing Germanian’ could be heard. “Well, what about you, Tabitha?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we go back up and wait for morning?”  
  
The blue-haired girl looked up from the book she had recovered. “Does not matter,” she said, softly. “Slyphid can find ‘er own food.”  
  
“So it’s agreed!” Guiche declared. “Let’s go end this evil once and for all!”  
  
But there was no evil liche waiting on the other side of the door, despite the dramatic manner in which they had burst through, flanked by an honour guard of brass golems. There was just this hollow, echoing space, with another identical-but-sealed door on the other side. And in the middle of the room there were three pillars, which looked to be made of white marble. On the left-hand one, there were four rings of gold over the pillar. The one at the bottom was the widest by far, and they got smaller as they rose. The sculpting were beautiful, a classic remnant of a bygone era, and they were studded with windstones which crackled with lightning.  
  
The dry rasp of the undead warlord’s voice echoed through the antechamber. “Ah, you poor fool _sss_ ,” he hissed, in a voice which suggested he would have been spraying spittle all over the place had his saliva not evaporated years ago. “You may have defeated my previou _sss_ champion _sss_! But they were but le _sss_ _sss_ er being _sss_! Mere violen _sss_ _sss_ ufi _sss_ ed! But in here, I am warded by my magic and my might! I am _sss_ upreme in here!”  
  
“We’ll get you!” Guiche called out. “Just you wait!”  
  
“You never will,” the liche cackled. “I am _sss_ afe, and time i _sss_ on my _sss_ ide! You are like dry leave _sss_ on the gale _sss_ of my power _sss_! No man has ever broken through my final defence _sss_! Behold them!”  
  
“This is boring,” Kirche muttered.  
  
“Behold! I have put many mighty and powerful ward _sss_ on thi _sss_ la _sss_ t defen _sss_! The only way through i _sss_ to _sss_ olve the puzzle, but a _sss_ ingle mistake will fill the entire room with the power of lightning!”   
  
The corpse filled the room with laughter, echoing in this hollow space. And the four children stared at the four rings upon their pillar.  
  
“What,” Guiche said flatly. “I’m sorry, but... wasn’t that a problem in mathematics? You move the rings and... and stuff happens. Is this meant to be some kind of cunning trap?”  
  
“Well,” Montmorency said, transferring her wand to her other hand and stretching out her fingers. “This won’t take long. Just as well, really. That hissing bag of bones is annoying.”  
  
“You said it,” Kirche agreed. “Tabby, go solve that thing and we can go set this idiot on fire and save the handsome count.”

* * *

“... and once again, brave Guiche de Gramont, I thank you for your aid in rescuing my nephew,” said the avuncular man, to applause from the watchers. “And your beautiful companions, of course, deserve our hearty thanks. I would ask you to stay longer, but of course, we know that skills such as yours are needed all across Tristain. You captured the loathsome Fouquet... she stole a very nice jewelled goblet off me three years ago, you slew the orc warlord An Mak, and now, having crushed the liche king and saved the Count de Maas, I will make sure the whole country knows of your deeds.”  
  
Guiche boosted himself up into his saddle, and bowed. “You are too kind, my lord,” he said. “In times of uncertainty such as this, with the political turmoil and such dreadful things, the least we can do is put our school holidays towards helping out our country.”  
  
“Nonsense, dear boy. I served with your father, donchaknow, and I am proud to see that no matter what anyone might say about your family having fallen on hard times, the same heroism of the de Gramonts burns brightly! Why, it can even bring to life the flames of a Germanian and a Gallian, to fight with you!” He leaned towards, pressing a small coin purse into the blond’s hand. “A little extra, on top of our pre-existing gratitude.”  
  
“I do like fire,” Kirche said, nodding, before she clambered up onto her own mount. Her eyes swept over the crowd, lingering on the young count standing beside the weighty man. Her eyes sparkled; he flushed bright red and mouthed something at her.   
  
Beside the Germanian, Monmon sighed. “We must be on our way, though, if we don’t want to be caught in the bad weather which looks to be moving in.”  
  
“Yes, yes, of course,” said a woman with a generous bosom and a slightly sour look in her eyes. “Thank you so much for rescuing my half-brother. Alive. I’m in your eternal debt. Really. Thank you.”  
  
Guiche bowed to her too. “We did what we had to do, fair lady,” he said. “How could I let the brother of someone so beautiful as you perish? I would hate for one as fair as you to mourn.” Her eyes softened, and she smiled.   
  
Purely by accident, Monmon’s horse stumbled into Guiche’s, and he nearly fell off. And together, the party of students wheeled their horses around, and to applause went out to where they would meet with Tabitha, who was getting food for her dragon-familiar.  
  
“That went pretty well,” Guiche said smugly, leaning back on his horse with both hands behind his head. “We slew the liche king, rescued the count, got rewarded and deposited our hard-earned... uh, earnings with a banking house, and we sold some of those things from the tomb.” His face darkened. “And I had to pay to have my breastplate beaten out,” he added. “The least they could have done would have been to do that for free.”  
  
“That’s why I wear leathers,” Kirche said, smirking. “Lighter, and more comfortable.” She rested one hand on her chest. “And of course, they don’t make plates like that to fit me,” she said, ignoring Montmorency’s muttering. “Though,” the girl said, “he really wasn’t much of a ‘king of all liches’ for all his bragging. He was... like, a baron at most. And went up like a torch.” She blew on her fingers. “Wonderful.”  
  
“Incidentally, Guiche,” Montmorency added, “I saw the purse he gave you. You’re going to share it with the rest of us. In case it slips your mind.”  
  
The boy dug his hand into his pocket, and began to count out coins. A dragon’s cry sounded out, and the three of them took their horses’ reins firmly. The beasts may have been somewhat used to being around a dragon by now, but they were still put on edge by it. Especially when, as now, it had been feeding; the creature’s mouth was still bloody as it landed next to them. Tabitha did not look up from her book. “Cows,” she said. “Paid for them.”  
  
“All right!” Kirche declared, stretching. “Guiche, we’re going to...”  
  
“Looking at the map,” the boy said, “we can probably make Sant Henri before nightfall. The guidebook says the inn there is good, and has hot baths. It’s also near the ruins of the Beschendaal Estate, and they say there are still flesh-eating monks living down in the basement.”  
  
“Wonderful!” Montmorency and Kirche said in tandem. They paused, and then the blonde continued. “All right. I picked the notifications from the town speaker back there, so we’ll be able to see what else is going on around here.”  
  
“Pass me some,” the red-head said. “I don’t trust you on your maths for the value-time investment ratios.”  
  
“My sums are perfectly good!”  
  
“I really wish we didn’t do this,” Guiche sighed. “It feels sordid, working out what gives the best money return for our time. Wouldn’t you say so, Tabitha?”  
  
He looked up at the girl on the dragon. The dragon looked at him. After a short wait, the girl did too. “No,” she said. “You... ‘ow do you say... want to be ze ‘ero. Ze main person. But you are not.”  
  
“Fine!” he muttered, reining in his horse a little while pouting. And so the party rode on in silence, broken only by the low mutterings of Kirche and Montmorency as they compared and calculated travel times, risk factors, and expected returns of investments. It was almost lunch time when the blonde girl’s raised voice disturbed the peace.  
  
“You really have no standards,” Monmon said caustically. “I can’t believe you did... that! With the count! Stop trying to get me to take account of the likelihood of rescuing pretty boys!”  
  
“But they’re so grateful and expressive in their gratitude when you rescue them!” Kirche objected.  
  
“That doesn’t make it okay!”  
  
“I know,” Kirche said, shaking her head sadly. She slapped herself gently across the face. “Bad Kirche! Very bad Kirche! Such terrible standards!”  
  
“There’s no need to mock me because you’re a Germanian trollop,” the blonde informed her. "At heart, you're kind of a bitch, you know that?"  
  
“But I do have no standards!” Kirche said, putting one hand to her mouth. “He may have looked handsome, but he was a virgin. And virgins are no good until they’ve learned where to put their thing.” She shook her head sadly. “But I let my weak, womanly lusts overcome me! Such shame! Such ignominy!”  
  
“There’s no talking to you when you’re like this,” Monmon retorted, wheeling her horse away.  
  
“It’s really a shame too,” Kirche added wickedly, “because he had really nice estates.” She paused, deliberately. “And a large endowment.”  
  
Montmorency made a disgusted harrumph.  
  
“True,” Tabitha said, looking up from her book. “Ze County de Maas eez wealthy. Collects trade tariffs along ze... the river. ‘Is parents are dead. Marriage prospects are good.”  
  
There was an awkward silence.  
  
“Look, Tabby,” Kirche said kindly, “just keep reading, okay? But yes, he was no good with it. And it’s no good having a large endowment if you don’t know how to use it.”  
  
“A bad investment eez bad for status and money,” the blue-haired girl agreed, returning to her book.  
  
Kirche sighed. “You lot are no fun, you know that?” she said, sadly. “You’re too frigid for it to be funny, Monmon, Guiche has his fingers in his ears because it makes him vaguely uncomfortable when I talk like this, and Tabby doesn’t get what I’m saying.”  
  
“I don’t have my fingers in my ears,” Guiche objected, from his position somewhat behind the other three. “I’m just... uh, reading the map.”  
  
“Sure you are,” Kirche said cheerfully.  
  
The blue-haired girl looked up from her book, frowning. After a few moments of thought, her eyes widened. “Oh,” she said, “not ‘is lands? Inheritance from muzzer? That eez ‘is endowment?”  
  
The red-head smirked. “Well, I saw his sister there and the portraits in the hallway, and I’d have to say, I think she’s the one with the two large inheritances from their mother, not him!” she observed.  
  
“Oh. Passing wealth down only through line female. Zat... that eez unusual. Eez zat why she was not ‘appy we rescued ‘im alive, no?”  
  
“Go back to your book, Tabby.” Kirche sighed. “No fun at all. None of you explode at me like L... like the fun way. I’m like a fire deprived of my fuel. A blacksmith without iron. A troll without her favourite amusing little billygoat.”  
  
“Or a slattern without her dignity,” Montmorency drawled.  
  
“Just not the same,” the taller girl said, shaking her head. “It’s just not the same.” She shook her head. “Lunch?” she asked.  
  
It was generally agreed to be a good move. And over the meal, they discussed their options. And what to do next.  
  
“Veto,” Tabitha said.  
  
Guiche raised his eyebrows in surprise. “But... a remote castle, terrorised by ghosts, offering to pay well if people will rid them of the menace? Sure that combines heroism and being well rewarded in a...”  
  
“Veto.”  
  
“But...”  
  
“Oh, lay off her, Guiche,” Kirche said lazily, sprawling back on the grass. “She used her veto; we all get one.” She picked up another pamphlet. “Oh, here’s one,” she said. “A family from... does it say Tarbes or Tardes here? I can’t read it; whoever wrote it was an illiterate. Oh well. Yeah, their... dum de dum, oldest daughter missing, willing to pay a reward... yeah, that one’s worthless. Less than an ecu, and it’s up north. Not worth it.”  
  
“Though if we head that way, we should always keep an eye out,” the blond boy said over his shoulder, as he went to the horses to recover a treat for his mole-familiar.  
  
“... well, if we must,” Kirche said, reluctantly. “We’d have to be very, very near or for it to be very easy if it’s worth it for probably-days of effort doesn’t even get us an ecu.”  
  
“I’m sure it’s all they can afford,” Guiche said, raising his voice over the contended sound of his familiar sucking on a fine South-Eastern black loam. “But yes, you’re right. If we knew it was more than a missing girl, like if it was some necromancer or demon who had spirited her away, then it would be different.”  
  
“It certainly would,” the redhead agreed. “Hey, while you’re over by the bags, get me some horse jerky, would you?”  
  
Monmon looked up from where she was tallying up their takings. “That’s hardly very lady-like,” she said primly. “Can you at least keep your mouth closed this time when chewing? Guiche, Kirche is deliberately eating with her mouth open to annoy me!”  
  
Tabitha wiped her hands on the ground. “Still go to Sant ‘enri,” she said. “Catch up later. There eez somezing I need to do.”  
  
“See you,” Kirche said with a wide-open mouth, waving lazily, as Tabitha sprung up onto the back of her dragon, and it soared off in a gust of wind. She tossed a piece of meat to her salamander familiar, which caught it in its mouth. “Well, what else?” she asked. “Oh, it says here that apparently the Madame de Montespan will pay a thousand ecu if anyone can provide information towards the discovery of something called the Fireheart. With...” she let out an impressed whistle, “... my, ten thousand ecu if it is brought to her in Amstelredamme.”  
  
“Do we know what it is?” Guiche asked. “Fireheart... the name sounds familiar. Was it that thing which was once stolen by the Anti-Popess Luxuria before Huenon the Brave cast her from the highest tower of the Janiculum?”  
  
“... that’s... uh, a little unclear,” Kirche admitted. “And... uh, no. No, she had replaced her heart with the Heart of Passion. I know that for a fact; I’ve always been very fond of the tales of her and her exploits. What a dreadful woman she was, turning the flames of passion towards Evil like she did!”  
  
“Helpful,” Monmon drawled. “Really.” She stretched out on the grass. “I think it’s not going to rain after all,” she said, looking up at the sky. “Look. The clouds are moving away, to the north. And...” she shivered. “Did anyone else just get a cold feeling? No? No?” She sighed. “Just me, then.”  
  
“I need to go find a bush,” Guiche noted, pulling himself to his feet. “And some soft leaves.”  
  
“Thank you very much for telling us that! Too much information!” Montmorency snapped.

* * *

Pan out, up away from the grassy field filled with grass, flowers, bunnies, and other such signs of Goodness, and we end up in the sky. And then by the mechanism of a perspective shift, it is revealed that aha! All the world was trapped inside a crystal ball.  
  
The blue minion assigned to watching the ball frowned. With all its intellect and concentration, tongue sticking out, it began to write in chalk on the black board in front of it.  
  
YLLOW + RED + YELOW HRR HROS TAKLING ABUT STUFF. BLU HRO GO AWY ON DRGN.  
  
NOW I WNT JRKY  
  
Gnarl’s Hero Observation Project had... perhaps a little bit to go before he should tell the overlady of its existence. There were still quite a few niggling little implementation flaws, like the use of minions as watchers, and the fact that he only had one crystal ball, and of course the fact that it was mostly luck if they stumbled on a group.  
  
Still, Evil always found a way. And if it didn’t... well, he hadn’t told the overlady about this new plan, so from a certain point of view, it wasn’t like Evil – or he – had failed or anything.  



	14. Revamping the Tower 4-1

_“No! This cannot be! This will not be! I will not let a von Zerbst, of all people, be my downfall! Well know this, Abraham! You could have saved her! But you chose to pursue me even when I damn well gave you the chance to rescue your wife! She was a bitch to the end… but now it’s more true than ever! You heard that howling, did you not? Viktoria von Zerbst… show yourself and kill your fool of a husband! Ah ha ha ha ha!”_  
  
–  Louis de la Vallière, the Bloody Duke

* * *

The sunlight of the new day’s dawn washed across the forsaken swamp and the ruined tower within like molten gold.  
  
Of course, an ancestor of the nominal owner of aforementioned ruined tower had once attempted to cover a particularly ugly village which had annoyed him in molten gold. However, the cost had been prohibitive, and he had been forced to resort to iron. As a result, he had discovered while the ways in which sunlight was like molten gold were beyond his fiscal capabilities to measure, sunlight was pretty much nothing like molten iron, which typically had a lot more screaming, burning, toxic fumes, foul steams and other such things than sunlight. His diary for the day had mourned how the iron didn’t look as good as he would have liked and that next time he should probably use bronze, before going into a paranoid rant about how his daughter was planning to murder him.  
  
Incidentally, he was proven right when she pushed him into one of his own smelters.  
  
But because the thing which was washing across the landscape was only sunlight and not molten metal, what woke Louise de la Vallière from her slumber was not searing heat, but instead only mildly uncomfortable brightness from the light shining through her shutters.  
  
The dark overlady of vile darkness groaned, and tried to stuff her head under her pillow. Wretched light! For hundreds of years, had not man dreamed of destroying the sun? Well, she would show it!  
  
Eventually, though, she was forced to concede that her considerable and malevolent willpower would not succeed where the anti-pope Obteneratus III had failed, and dragged herself out of bed. She was aching all over. She still felt grimy, despite her bath last night, and raising her nightdress she could see that the bruise she had noticed all the way down her left thigh was turning a nasty shade of purple. Limping, she dressed herself with stiff fingers, putting on what armour she could manage and then throwing a robe over the top of it - and went off to find herself breakfast.  
  
There was a minor miracle waiting for her. Admittedly, it was the kind of miracle which one had to prepare for oneself, and hence was not particularly miraculous, but still, there was plenty of food from her shopping trip the day before yesterday. And... well, at least there would be wheat flour because the minions had looted a few warehouses that she hadn’t told them to.  
  
Surely it wasn’t that hard to make bread? After all, peasants managed it. And failing that, she could probably get a minion to steal a baker’s clothes and it would probably turn out tolerably bad. God only knew how minions seemed to acquire skills from the things they stole. Well, maybe God only suspected. But the Abyss almost certainly knew.  
  
But still, there was bread and there was butter made from nice reliable horse milk and there was bacon and there was even fried mushroom because the minions had made her some in the same pan as the bacon. She was hungry, and the mushrooms tasted of overdone pork fat, rather than mushroom. There was however no rat. So everything was good.  
  
She was just finishing her second helping when a red-skinned minion wearing a long heavy apron and smelling of gunpowder skidded up beside her. “Overlady!” he said. “Gnarl say...” and he frowned for a moment. “He say lots of words, but he then say that in easy-peasy version that he want to see you in map room. You have to give orders about what to do with ship.”  
  
“I see,” Louise said, with her mouth full.  
  
“Also, what to do with drunken sailor. We find him early in morning. Being sick in cabin.”  
  
The dark lady put her knife down with a sigh, and laid her head down upon her hands. Nothing ever went the easy way, did it?  
  
“Maggat want to shave his belly with rusty razor, but Scyl say no, we feed him to hungry rats for dinner. It probably good idea, because ratties are large and hungry and we needs to get our milky from them so we can make tasty cheeses. And then Maxy grin and say that that sound good and then we all get very worried because that what he do when he getting poet-ical on us and then he went looking for that lyre that he steal from pub,” the minion continued mercilessly. “And that very bad indeed. When Maxy get poet-ical, we has to listen to him until we manages to take his music thing and break it. And even then he sing.”  
  
Louise groaned into her hands. It was too early in the morning for minions. Of course, it was often also too late in the evening for minions, or too middle of the day in the middle of the day, but she was feeling this most acutely. “I’ll go see him,” she said, hoping to fend off any other minion stories along the way.  
  
She was unsuccessful.

* * *

“... and then Snot say to Pyre, ‘but I not on fire’, and Pyre say ‘not yet!’ and we all laugh! It even funnier because then Pyre set him on fire!”  
  
“Gnarl!” Louise said as soon as she stepped into the map room... which, uh, seemed to be rather devoid of maps. It was part of the underground parts of the tower which had not yet been whitewashed, and rotting curtains hung heavy on the walls. At least the lighting here was somewhat better than in other similar rooms; several bright magical crystals hung from the ceiling, casting pools of light onto areas of the floor and revealing that it had been haphazardly swept. There were minions lounging around here, as well as her advisor waiting for her. “You said you had news for me?”  
  
The elderly minion straightened up, the light over his head bobbing around. “Indeed, your evilness,” he said, putting down the silvery mechanism he had been examining. “Firstly, the matter of the drunken sailor. I propose we...”  
  
Louise had time to think about this on the way here, as she tried to ignore the babbling of the red-skinned minion. “Tie him in a sack, and throw him out somewhere,” she said, impatiently, ignoring the squeal of glee from the floppy-hatted brown-skinned minion to one side who started writing something down before Maggat hit him in the head with a club. “But make sure he’s as drunk as... a very drunk sailor beforehand. On that beer the greens drink, the one I don’t trust.”  
  
Gnarl smirked. “Ah, excellent plan, your evilness. That beer contains wormwood, you know. Well, it certainly contains worms and wood, and the greens go for wormwood whenever they can. He’ll not know whether it’s the day of Evil or breakfast time.”  
  
“Actually, I was thinking,” Louise lied – this was actually just a good idea she’d had on the spot – “that what we should do is transport him somewhere else and then get... like, some of the smarter minions to brag in front of him about their ‘hidden base’ and then when he gets found, they’ll look for the ship wherever we left him. Maybe closer to the capital, as the portal allowed us to get there, but not too close because we don’t want to let them find out where that stone circle was. You see, I read it in a book by the Iberian general...”  
  
“Most exquisitely evil, your darkness,” her chief minion agreed. “Such a masterly deception. Trick and confound the annoyingly tenacious forces of good. Of course…” he added, “you could always sacrifice him to…”  
  
“No!” the overlady blurted out. She took a breath. “That would be… short-sighted! Anything that could be… um… could gained from a sacrifice would be lost if they… they didn’t have a false lead from the sailor! The fact that I have a secret base is really, really, really… vital for my… uh, plans.” Well, that was certainly true. “And I know from history that once the forces of Good find out where a dark lord’s tower is, they’ll end up defeating them. And that would be bad. Good. A thing we don’t want.” At least until she _planned_ to be defeated, at least.  
  
Gnarl stroked his goatee. “There is wisdom there, my lady,” he said. “Very well. We will get the drunken sailor even more drunken, and then he will be tied in a sack and thrown through the tower heart. And then he will be dragged over to a town and village, and possibly left near a cesspit. I will give the orders.”  
  
Louise brushed a lock of hair back, internally relaxing. That had been a close one. She wasn’t about to be responsible for the death of a probably-mostly-innocent sailor if she could avoid it. And she had been rather cunning to use it to cover her tracks, she thought smugly. “Now,” she said, moving on, “the ship?”  
  
“Oh, indeed, indeed.” The elderly minion hobbled over to the balcony, and it was at that point that Louise realised that the map room was in fact more akin to… to some kind of viewing pit, with a circular arena down on the ground. What it appeared to lack was any maps, however. “It took us a while to find this again and get all the machinery working,” Gnarl said conversationally. “The bloody vampire had been using this as a dumping pit for corpses, and also – worse! – amateur dramatics.”  
  
“It take us long time to get rid of costumes crammed down into gears,” Igni added. “They very bad costumes! Barely good enough to give to new minions! So we give them to them as punishment, say ‘when you loot better costume, you no have to wear this rubbish’.” The red-skinned minion focussed. “Maggat say it ‘moe-tea-vay-shun-all’. Of course, then Maxy ask him what that means, and Maggat explain that it all about not letting them have tea. That bad punishment. Tea is good. Especially with rum added.”  
  
“Indeed, the little darlings are great tea drinkers,” Gnarl said. “We had an Albionese overlord once, and they picked up the habit from him, especially when he tried to invade Cathay and the rest of the Mystic East to control the world supplies of it. He died, of course; my lady, be careful around the warriors of the Mystic East. They fight in strange ways quite unlike the Heroes around here.”  
  
“Analogue pirate!” the jester contributed to the discussion.  
  
Louise blinked at the… unconnected nature of the statement. Well, she had come into a possession of a ship. Which had been sort of stolen. By things which worked for her. And even if she hadn’t exactly told them to do it, she had still kept possession of it. So it was sort of piracy.  
  
She didn’t get where the ‘analogue’ came in. Maybe it was an analogy.  
  
To get away from this madness and minonly illogic, she quickly asked, “So, the ship?”  
  
“Indeed, indeed. Deploy the maps,” Gnarl commanded.  
  
“Deploy map!” a rather shrill minion yelled from somewhere up in the rafters.  
  
Slowly, with a grinding of unseen clockwork gears, the floor below began to morph and deform. Model buildings, structures, cities, even the tower in its ruined state; all rose up from the floor even as the terrain shifted to imitate the world. There were minions humming something in the background, for some reason. Louise did not feel it would be a productive use of her time to ask them why and would only lead to further confusion so instead she marvelled at the mechanical complexity of this thing before her. This must have been at least eighty years old – because the vampire hadn’t put it in – and yet the clockwork involved must have been... well, frankly astonishing.  
  
There! Down there she could see the northern coast taking shape! And... yes, that must have been the tower before it was ruined, a spiky pinnacle slowly rising up. And lesser buildings too; oversized to the scale of the map, but clearly connected to the tower! And...  
  
... then it all ground to a halt, with a clanking and a noise which could only be described as ‘cloing’.  
  
Gnarl sighed. “Sadly, your evilness, it appears that everything is not quite as repaired as I might have liked. Oh well.” He pointed down at a half-emerged model city. “You see that there? That is Bruxelles, the capital. “And that bit here, and here, and here,” he jabbed his finger towards three spikes, “... those are three of the relay towers I have been able to ascertain still exist.”  
  
“Mistress of Mott’s painful separation!” contributed the jester.  
  
Well, that was fair enough, she had to admit. The joker was probably right there. “Relay... oh, yes, the things which increase how far the Tower Heart can reach!”  
  
“And which do things like spawn new minions and generally enable your dark reign, yes,” Gnarl agreed. “Sadly, they have a pronounced tendency to be destroyed by Heroes as a prelude to your attempted murder, as well as to be used as bases by small-minded fools who think that they are a full-scale tower, rather than merely a tool in the conquest of Evil. Still, I have found that there are three left which are within range; one to the east, one to the south, and one to the west. There is one more to the north, but it appears to be flooded. Perhaps the darkness of Doggerland has been drowned by the ocean once more.”  
  
“... I see,” Louise said, who didn’t. “I don’t see how that’s relevant to the thing of where to put my new ship, though.” She paused. “Where is the ship?”  
  
“We park it safely! Scyl know how to park ship!” Maggat said helpfully, thumbs hooked into his belt.  
  
“Ah, well...”  
  
“We not knock down any trees by accident at all!”  
  
Ah. So they had knocked down some trees deliberately. Well, she couldn’t bring herself to care right now. “Gnarl! Where is the ship!”  
  
The elderly minion looked hurt. “Why, your evilness, it is docked in the Pit of Despair. Where else would it be?”  
  
“I have a pit of despair? When did I get one of those?”  
  
Gnarl shifted slightly uncomfortably. “Well,” he admitted, "it is a little flooded, so it is currently a lake of despair. But once it is dried out – and right now, there are minion bucket chains there – we will be able to hide it from prying eyes in the tunnels in the side of the Pit!”  
  
Louise exhaled, nostrils flaring. “They why did you send for me if you already knew about what to do with the ship?” she asked, the pitch of her voice rising. She jabbed her finger at Igni. “That one told me that you want to talk about what to do with the ship!”  
  
“Oh, that was a mere formality,” her advisor said dismissively. “We are going to talk about the repair work to the tower and what to prioritise. I had hoped to use the map room to explain it, but... ah, it is one of the things which is damaged. Igni, why did you lie to the overlady?”  
  
The red-skinned minion pursed its lips. “I want to keep it a surprise for her! Tower work excite a lot of overlords and make them happy!” it replied. “It like prezzie!”  
  
It was true, Louise was no more than mildly peeved; something which was quickly fading as she started to look forwards to the prospect of no longer living in a ruin. “So...” she began, gesturing for Gnarl to continue.  
  
“Ah, indeed, indeed. Well, we can get down to the detailed cost calculations later, my lady, but as for the current state of affairs, you now have construction equipment – so generously donated by that town – and money as well as your minion workforce. As a result, we can begin repairs. You could focus on rebuilding the main tower, on the lower dungeons – you know, removing the holes in the floor and cleaning the place up – or even try to reclaim some of the exterior buildings. I would not recommend the latter, but the choice is up to you.”  
  
“Rebuild the tower?” Louise echoed.  
  
“Ah, yes, your evilness,” Gnarl said, rubbing his hands together, “why, many an evil overlord has chosen to build a larger tower to overcome any disrespect directed at him! With enough height – and girth, that’s important too – you can hold others in contempt from your superior position! They’re just jealous of your tower!”  
  
Louise wrinkled her nose. “Aren’t they a little... over the top?” she asked. “I mean, not only are they top heavy, but my father said that the towers of various dark lords are very susceptible to cannon fire. The least impact, and they start sagging or listing, and once they do that they’re very hard to get upright again.” She pursed her lips. “Wouldn’t... like, something much shorter, but inside a protective layer of high walls make a much better seat of power?”  
  
She got the distinct feeling Gnarl was not exactly pleased. “Your evilness, please, think of tradition. All overlords have a tower, and they are often judged on its size.”  
  
“I’m an overlady,” the girl said tetchily.  
  
“Oh, that’s even more true of the distaff forces of darkness,” the minion said. “To get ahead in the world, queens of darkness have an uphill battle, and having a big tower helps in that.”  
  
It was tempting, Louise did have to admit. Standing on top of the battlements, cackling, throwing fire down at fools who had come to steal her power... no! That was bad! She didn’t want to be found out, and building a giant tower... was not subtle.  
  
But it was so tempting.  
  
Well, she could put it off for now. “I think we should focus on the lower areas first, on the dungeons and the hidden passageways,” she said. “I think that is better suited for my personal plans.”  
  
“Very well, my lady,” Gnarl said. “I will need to consult with you more, and might I recommend that you prioritise the map room in repairs. It allows me to dynamically show you the floor plans of such things and generally makes the bureaucratic process more efficient and functional. Why, it is quite beyond compare there.”  
  
“... I’ll think about it,” Louise said diplomatically. “But in the mean time...”  
  
“Defiler of pure maidens!”  
  
Louise spun, and kicked the jester in the face. “I never!” she screamed, panting. Steel boots clattering against the floor, she marched over and pressed one of her pointy heels into its chest. “Listen to me, you repugnant, stupid little creature,” she hissed. “Firstly, I did nothing of the sort! All I did was take her clothing and her wand! I did _nothing_ like that and I do not want my name connected with such vile acts. She was a girl!” She ground the heel against the minion. “And secondly, there was no way whatsoever that she was pure! Or a maiden! Pure maidens wouldn’t try to seduce their evil captor! Certainly not so enthusiastically! Do I make myself clear?”  
  
There was a squealing and a bubbling noise from the jester, which it might – in certain lights – be possible to read as agreement. Just to be sure, Louise kicked it a few more times, picked it up by an ear, dropped it and punted it as hard as she could. Breathing heavily, she made her way back to Gnarl. “Where were we?” she asked, brushing a lock of hair away from her eyes.  
  
Gnarl cleared his throat. “A little more followthrough on the kicks, my lady, if you really wish for the jester to go as far as possible,” he said, drily. “And as for everything else, well, I do believe that...” he paused, his eyes widening, and at the same moment Louise felt her gauntlet feel uncomfortably warm and chime like a bell.  
  
“What’s happening?” she asked, voice rising in pitch.  
  
“That would be a message from... yes, that would be Scarron’s incantation, and an attempt by someone not permitted to do so to pass through the tower heart,” Gnarl said, voice low. “Your ladyship, it would be best to get down there right now with all the minions you can. And put your helmet on; it protects your head. We’ll see what that old man-botherer wants.”

* * *

Things never seemed to change down in the tower heart room. Although Gnarl had actually explained to her how one of the things she could spend time and money doing was cleaning the place up, he had also – in his way – hinted that she probably had better things to be doing with it.  
  
Privately, it annoyed her a little bit to have the heart of her power looking like this, but he probably was right.  
  
So instead she stood here in her full armour, army of minions behind her, feeling like a bit of a fool as she waited for something to happen.  
  
“You need to invite them in,” Gnarl prompted. “Only one person, though. It’s common sense.”  
  
“Oh,” Louise said, blushing pinkly. “Come in. One person,” she tried.  
  
Light flared from the tower heart, and when her vision cleared, a familiar-looking, dashingly handsome man was standing before her. The gentlemen, quite apart from being knee-weakenly gorgeous was also grinning from ear to ear with a pure joy which left her mouth dry. She swooned as he threw himself at her, sweeping her up in his manly embrace, mashing his breasts against her, kissing her full on the lips. It was every dream come true! It was every woman’s fantasy! It was...  
  
Wait a moment. Breasts?  
  
Louise squirmed free – something which took more effort than she would have liked – and slapped herself in the side of her head, squinting. The man... with the long, manly... no! With the long hair and... and the curves and soft skin... and... she gritted her teeth. The man was in fact not a man! She had to keep herself thinking clear! Even if the sheer aura of manliness was leaving her weak at the knees and dry-mouthed. It was... very handsome... no! “Jessica,” she grated out; yes, that was the m... the m... the person’s name. “The... thing. And you... you kissed me!”  
  
“We did it!” the m... Jessica exclaimed, delight clear in her voice. In one hand, she... yes, the rage seemed to be burning off the illusion... but in one hand, she had what looked to be a coverless book, with... Louise squinted. A picture of herself? Dressed in full armour? Hanging from a rope suspended from a windship?  
  
A picture from her last night was... in a book?  
  
“What’s going on?” she protested.  
  
“We made headlines! Well, you did, and so my armour did!”  
  
“Who has a line on whose head?”  
  
“We’re going to be so massive!”  
  
“What’s size going to do with anything? Why aren’t you making sense? And please, stop making me think of you in masculine ways!”  
  
The two of them retreated to one of the more pleasant rooms in the ruined tower – which was rather like talking about one of the more clean areas of a pigsty – and over tea, Louise got Jessica to expand.  
  
It didn’t help much.  
  
“So let me get this straight,” Louise said, after Jessica gave an extended explanation. Hand gestures were involved. And sketches. “The Abyss... this is the place where the demons come from and wicked souls burn?”  
  
“Mmm hmm.”  
  
“The Abyss has demons who go around collecting stories of what happen in the world above and in the Abyss itself, and write them down, and even draw pictures of them. And they keep them in their journals, which are wicked enchanted tomes which store the secrets of the world above and dark and forbidden magics and that sort of thing.”  
  
“Yep!”  
  
“And then at some point, they started publishing their journals, using demonic magic to copy the text into other books. And demons pay for this to happen, like a town crier but in written form. And... and there are journals which are mostly accurate and which get used by the lords of the Abyss to plan their invasions of the world above, and there are ones which just... just draw wicked and licentious pictures and just make up stories to amuse their readers?”  
  
“That’s why demons who do it are called ‘journalists’,” Jessica confirmed. “And there are even journals which aren’t in books any more, but where the demons might read through a crystal ball or something and you can scry on plays and stuff. I’ve got one of those in my bedroom, usually tuned to one of the concert hall locations.”  
  
Louise shook her head sadly. “The Abyss is a very strange and wicked place,” she said, “and to think that it has so much knowledge of the world above... it’s scary.”  
  
Jessica grinned broadly, eyebrows arching up. “Wait until I tell you about the enchanted walls where the short prayers of cultists are displayed in burning runes!”  
  
“Please don’t,” Louise said, her voice dry. “But... okay. The fact that I made them draw a line on my head is a good... a bad... a... a word-which-means-I-have-done-well thing?”  
  
The dark-haired girl bounced up and down on her toes. “Oh yes! It’s wonderful! Not only are you doing well, but look!” She jabbed a finger at the picture on the front. “Right in plain sight, for everyone to see! It’s my work! Someone wearing something I designed and forged is headline news! And...” Jessica ruffled through the pages, “... we also made the fashion chapter! Eemogene... you wouldn’t know her, but she’s a really well-respected journalist who specialises in talking about such things... says that it’s a daring fashion statement which crosses gender boundaries and imposes a quasi-feminine mystique on the harsh damn’d steel lines of the classically male fallen knight archetype! And that its ‘ferrous feminist’ style rejects heteronormative clichés and opens up whole new vistas of pansexual dominion with the gynocratic statement eminently clear!”  
  
“Uh,” Louise began, the strange forbidden words of the Abyss confusing her. She had just thought she was getting armour which protected her, and sort of looked like an evil version of Mother’s. And didn’t mean she was dressed in a slatternly way.  
  
Jessica squealed in glee. “Oh, this is wonderful!” she said. “It’s exactly what I was going for! Listen to this. ‘In its unconventional colour choice which draws to mind male conquerors, the gender stereotypes are utterly violated. It is shameless in the way it flouts every proper standard of history; it is frankly antinomian in its deliberate refutation of thousands of years of overlady dress. I was actually shocked when I saw it, and applauded its provoctativeness! Indeed, the deliberate elements incorporated from the armour of no less than detested figure of Good Karina de la Vallière (49) is no less than a wake-up call that Evil is more than just the fripperies and tradition; it’s about Dark Style. And this armour radiates it in hellish majesty. This is certainly one to watch; I’ll be fascinated to see its effects on the Erberus Fashion show six months from now!’” The girl sagged down, fanning herself. “She... Eemogene actually thinks that my work might start a trend! It’s... it’s more than I could ever have hoped for! I... I think I’m feeling faint!”  
  
Louise strongly suspected that the real reason the other girl was feeling faint was that she was forgetting to breathe, but... well, it was nice to see that she was enjoying herself. Even if she was using arcane words which Louise didn’t understand, and wasn’t exactly sure she wanted to know. She sent a minion to get some water, and refilled the tea cup in front of her guest, barely spilling anything at all.  
  
Also, Jessica was looking decidedly handsome again, and so Louise felt it would probably be best to busy herself by seeing what the demons had actually said about her rather than staring at the dashingly handsome m... woman with the stubby horns protruding from her brow.  
  
The words at the top, ‘A New Power is Rising In The North’ were pleasing, but the rest of the journal was... strange. It was like reading a story about herself, only... the details were wrong. She was pretty sure she hadn’t duelled the comte de Mott on top of a burning building. She would have remembered doing so. And the speculation that she was one of his jilted lovers and that ‘the comte’s long and amorous past has caught up with him’ was not pleasing at all.  
  
“I’m technically not just here about this... oh, it’s so amazing!” Jessica said, breathing deeply. “But I had to talk Dad into letting me do this. I also do have other things to do here, while seeing you. Firstly... oh yes, Dad gave me...” she rummaged in a pocket, passing a pamphlet to Louise. “It’s our catalogue, of things that we’ve got in stock. It’s enchanted to update; it’s pretty cool!”  
  
“Cursed blade of Aldama,” Louise read out loud, “... the services of a succubus (nightly), an elven revolver (bullets not included)... Founder that’s expensive... oooh, tomes of sorcery!” Eagerly, she began to scan down the list of magic books.  
  
“We deliver straight to your tower of darkness,” Jessica added, “for no additional charge as you’re on our favoured client list.”  
  
“Lightning or more fire?” Louise said, not really listening. “On one hand, lightning. On the other, more fire.”  
  
“We also have bulk orders of things like sea-tarnished gold, obsidian, black marble, basalt and the like, though delivery may take up to twenty eight working days depending on order size and nature.”  
  
“Do I feel like a lightning person? That treacherous dog is famous for lightning, so maybe I should learn to beat him at his own game. But do I want to do that?”  
  
Jessica cleared her throat, bringing Louise back from her happy lightning-and-fire-filled world. “And one more thing which Dad told me to tell you personally, and then also tell your funny goblin adviser person,” she said. “He says he thinks he may be on the trail of one of the fragments of your tower heart, and he’ll tell you as soon as he finds out. And he does expect to be compensated for his services, at his normal rate.”  
  
Compensated for his services. Oh. Yes. That bought Louise up short. Suddenly, all those ecús she had stolen from the corrupt and wicked Council who were totally embezzling the taxes didn’t seem like enough. Some of these things alone... no! She also had to fund rebuilding the tower and... she’d need to have money for bribes and who knew about what kinds of expenses there were out there which she didn’t know about yet!  
  
Never had being rich felt so poor.  
  
“Anyway,” Jessica continued, “they’ve got even more pictures of you inside! And more commentary! And considering what it said... maybe you’d like to consider getting some dresses too! I mean, it’s likely you’ll start getting invites to infernal gatherings too as a young new black star of Evil, and presumably you don’t want to go in full armour to all of them?”  
  
Yes, Louise decided. This was going to be a very expensive period of her life.  
  
It was early autumn, and the trees from the windows were losing their green luster and – this being a stinking swamp – falling off the boughs to rot, when Scarron came through. By now, areas of the interior of the tower had been resheathed, and there were far fewer holes in the floor. This had been paid for by several more raids against tax collectors and other such symbols of the authority of the Council, especially the properties of the late comte de Mott – which had been appropriated by the state.  
  
In fact, there had been more than enough left over for a few rooms to be bought back into better operation. Her bedroom now no longer smelt of mould and had heating and a fire and proper wardrobes - with Jessica-made dresses in - and cushions and... it was wonderful! And the tower now had a bathroom very nearly as splendid as the one back at the Academy. The steaming pool within it which could have seated ten people. And only blue minions could bother her when she was in the baths, because other minions could – and did – drown when they fell in.  
  
She was just wrapping herself in one of the fluffy blood-red towels when Gnarl barged in, carrying the message from the prince of the Incubi. “He’s found where one of fragments of the tower heart, your evilness! We should seek to collect it as soon as possible.”  
  
Louise smirked. She already had worked out where it was going to be. It was obvious, in its own way. The Madam de Montespan had a reputation. Louise knew that, and had picked up even more from her oldest sister’s rants about her rival which implied that she dabbled in... dubious territory. Yes, that might just be Eleanore’s rivalry, but she _was_ a horrible fiancé-stealing bi... witch. So put those things together, and logically she would be drawn to the fragments of the tower heart which had been stolen. For her sinister and treacherous experiments.  
  
“So I’ll prepare for a little trip eastwards,” she said casually, trying not to grin too smugly at the prospect of revenge against Françoise Athénaïs de Mortemart.  
  
“Quite so,” Gnarl said. “Scarron has concrete proof that – as it seems you already suspected – the fragment was purchased around ten years ago by agents working for the Duke de la Vallière. Your father.”  
  
Louise blinked.  
  
Louise opened her mouth.  
  
Louise closed her mouth.  
  
She finally managed a strangled, “What.”


	15. Revamping the Tower 4-2

_“Sometimes unlucky things happen to good people for no real reason at all. That’s just how the mean old world works, I’m afraid. But if you work your best, sweetie, and try your hardest, I’m sure you’ll be able to push your way through everything and anything that stands in your way! Be nice to people and protect sweet innocent little girls from things which are mean and nasty, and I’m sure God will smile on you."_  
  
–  Cattleya Yvette La Baume Le Blanc de la Vallière

* * *

“My father,” Louise said, feeling numb. “My father. Has... has the fragment of the tower heart.”  
  
It wasn’t meant to be like this! It wasn’t! If she had to confront her family – and Founder aid her, hopefully she would never had to – then it should happen at the end, once her restoration of Princess Henrietta was all but a _fait acomplis_ and she could explain what she had been doing and why. Every bone in her body cried out that that was true. To have it happen now was... not what should happen!  
  
“The evidence appears to be concrete,” Gnarl said, looking up from the package which had been delivered. “It was stolen from a Germanian alchemist who had been looking into using it for immortality by the count von Sankt-Germanus, a known associate of your father, and from certain fiscal details within, the money chain is clear.” The minion sighed happily. “I will be sure to make sure of this, of course, which will require me to go over the papers with a rusty scalpel.”  
  
“Why does my father have it?” Louise screamed at the ceiling, impersonating an ironworks as she stomped up and down in her armour. “Why? What could possibly possess him to do something like that? Ten years ago, no less! It’s not even as if he did it to thwart me right now, which would be understandable!”  
  
Gnarl stroked his goatee. “Yes, that is a puzzler,” he said calmly. “What could a known Hero want with a tool of such mighty and magnificent Evil? Well, we have to bear in mind the lamentable tendency for the Heroic sort to take Evil artifacts and want to lock them away safe from where the proper people can do Wrong with them. The Germanian alchemist was melting people down in acid and trying to make clockwork prosthetics made of gold and bone, and that kind of thing always draws the Heroic sort when they find out about it.”  
  
The overlady drew a deep breath, and tried to calm herself down. Yes, maybe that was it. Maybe it was just locked in the family vault, somewhere safe. That would be good, because she knew how her parents got into it.  
  
“Of course,” Gnarl continued, “the kind of Hero who does that does have a tendency to get corrupted or controlled by the Evil artefact in question. Either directly, which is always highly amusing...”  
  
“Too true,” Maggat said gleefully. “They say ‘oh no, it controlling me, I can’t help myself’ when they attack their friendies, and then everyone cry when they killed. Well, that or they say ‘ah ha ha, you all fools, now me see truth, there only power and those too weak to seizes it’ and then there less crying when they get cut to pieces.”  
  
“First type funnier, but second type more effective for goal of Evil,” Igni observed.  
  
“Yes, indeed,” Gnarl said, shooting a slightly annoyed glance at the younger minions.  
  
“You see that a lot, do you?” Louise said bitterly, her fists clenched into balls. This was her father they were talking about.  
  
“Oh, a fair amount, a fair amount,” Gnarl said, hobbling over to the table to lift himself into his high chair. “It’s a remarkably common thing for Heroic types to do. Over the years, you get used to it.” He shuffled the papers noisily. “And there are so many things you can do with a fragment of a tower heart. They are Evil magical crystals par excellence. They are wonderful receptacles of souls; whether the tortured souls of your foes, or your own if you want to become a liche. They empower swords with black magic and boost a caster’s spells by a lot, at the cost of twisting their elemental affinity towards Evil. And so on and so forth. It never ends happily for the person trying it, of course, if only because cutting up tower hearts to try to do that kind of meddlesome thing tends to destabilise them and then everyone near even a fragment dies in a horrific magical meltdown.”  
  
Ah. Well, in that case, Louise felt, she was doing Good by rescuing the fragment. No one wanted a horrific magical meltdown. But she had a lot to think about.  
  
Louise cleared her throat uneasily. “This is a lot to take in,” she said. “I’m going for a walk. I need... I need fresh air to clear my head. While you check that Scarron is not lying to me.”  
  
“Not too fresh, I hope,” Gnarl said half-heartedly, his attention already drawn to the promise of paperwork. “Kill some bunnies for me.”

* * *

It was cold outside the tower, and her breath steamed in the air. Winter had come early this year, the snows rolling in off the Great North Sea, and whiteness crunched under her metal-clad feet. It was hard to believe that in a few months time, it would be spring again and she would have been missing for a whole year.  
  
She should have progressed faster. She should have spent more time taking down the Council, so she could go back to her family and not have to pretend to be evil and all sorts of things. But the comte de Mott had been a fluke! A fluke which had nearly killed her, and a fluke which would have escaped had her minions not stolen a ship.  
  
She had wanted to go faster, but she had not been able to do so! The Madam de Montespan was ensconced in Amstreldamme, which was actually larger than Bruxelles, and the duke de Richelieu was holding the capital. And as for her treacherous ex-fiancé who was a witless degenerate cur... well, no one knew where he was. Some people said he was in Albion handling negotiations with the successful rebels there, others that he was doing hidden things with the army. How was she meant to punish him for his wrongdoings if she couldn’t even find him!  
  
They hadn’t managed to get a proper replacement for the comte de Mott. That was something, at least. The crunch of snow under her feet was especially satisfying as she thought that. That man had – despite or possibly because he was a degenerate – been popular among the middle and low nobility, and had even been beloved by the peasantry. Which just showed the tragic lack of taste among most people. But still, his replacement on the Council was a grey yes-man. Louise couldn’t even remember his name.  
  
She might kill him at some point, but given that he seemed incapable of organising a... a drinking contest in a wine-cellar, that wasn’t a good use of her time. His replacement might actually be competent.  
  
Her wanderings had brought her to the rocky outcropping in the frozen-over swamp which she had started using as a practice area after she almost set an important bit of the tower on fire. Clearly her subconscious mind had been doing the thinking for her while she brooded. So while she was here, she might as well blow some things up.  
  
It did sound like a rather good idea.  
  
Soon the sound of breaking ice and sizzling rock filled the air, as Louise de Vallière took her frustrations out on the world around her.  
  
Because she was very frustrated. She was having to go up against her family. Her parents... would probably kill her. And from some of the things Gnarl had said about the uses of fragments of a tower heart, she was getting increasingly worried.  
  
It was looking not impossible that her parents might have dabbled in Evil magic. Which was _wrong_. They were her parents! They were Heroes! They shouldn’t be doing things like that! And... and from what it sounded like, they could have done it to save Cattleya, to keep her alive! At least, they might have thought about doing it, because she was still sick.  
  
Or they might have done something to her, to try to fix her problems with magic. And left her with this Evil magic which Gnarl kept on saying that he sensed in her. Wouldn’t that be a laugh, in a totally-not-funny way? She would have been linked to this ruined tower for far longer than she would have known. All the problems she’d always had with magic, the way that her power only worked properly with these dark spells she’d learned now... her parents’ fault?  
  
Snarling, Louise threw two titanic balls of fire into a frozen-over swampy patch, the steam blast knocking her off her feet. Flat on her back, she stared up at the grey sky, letting the chill soak into her bones and sap her fury.  
  
So be it.  
  
Even then, she wouldn’t march in and try to kill her parents. And not just because she’d lose. Because they were still her parents, and she didn’t even know if it was true. No, she would be sensible. She wouldn’t act like some idiotic dark lord who’d go and challenge Karina of the Heavy Wind to a duel and be cut to shreds.  
  
She’d just... get the fragment. Without anyone knowing she was there. No melodramatic confrontation, no climatic duel, no her-being-killed-by-her-mother. Nothing.  
  
The girl pulled herself up off the ground, and dusted the snow off her. Some tar-sticky globules of life energy were sitting around the crater in the swamp. Something had been living under there. Louise went around, her dark gauntlet absorbing the energy. She had rather a lot of it; she needed to find one of those minion-making artefacts that Gnarl had talked about so she could spend it. And also find a source of minions that didn’t rely on finding goblin tribes to take captive. She was running rather low on them recently. She’d depleted most of the local ones.  
  
Which was good, right, because it meant that people weren’t being raided in this harsh winter. So she was doing a righteous thing. And so... really, making a horde of minions was the morally correct choice, because at least she – who was good and pure – was in control of the little blighters.  
  
Panting, and feeling somewhat better for taking her annoyance out on the terrain, Louise looked up at the grey sky. Something moved up there; she shielded her eyes. There were black spots up against the clouds, but they were shaped wrong to be birds. And they were circling. Had something been drawn by her smashing?  
  
Well, she knew what to do. In one hand, she summoned two balls of fire; in the other, she held lightning. If they got close enough to see her properly, they’d end up cooked.  
  
And they did come flying in, to a sound of distant whineys. Wait. Whineys?  
  
The girl stared at the small herd of winged horses, circling around her. They glared at her with their mad equine eyes.  
  
“Oh, for goodness sake!” Louise sighed. “Really! Really? You too?”  
  
Well, if they were going to attack her _anyway_ , she might as well get to try out the lightning magic she had learned. The flying horses were asking for it. Why wouldn’t these dratted ponies leave her alone?

* * *

“Woo hoo!” one of the minions called as they dragged in the charred bodies. “Fresh meat! Overlady is best overlady! Maybe beer monster attack her next!”  
  
“That be good,” another one agreed. “But steakie in winter always good for now.”  
  
“Me prefer it rare,” a green whining, “and this burnt in bits.”  
  
Maggat slapped the shorter minion, sending him sprawling. “You ungrateful little whiner!” he shouted. “You so rude to overlady! She go get us meat, you complain? Well, no tasty horsie for you! I say, you go to duty torturer for being so rude! Right now!”  
  
Louise raised her eyebrows at that, but nodded. It was good to see that the smarter minions were keeping order. “Right!” she demanded, as the roasted foals were dragged off, “Gnarl! Where are you?”  
  
“Right here, your evilness,” Gnarl said from behind her.  
  
“Is the map room working at the moment?”  
  
He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “I’m afraid not, your darkness. Something went sproing inside it again last Watersday, and the last minion to go inside got rather mangled. The blues had to put him back together before they bought him back.”  
  
“Then we will go to the backup map room!” Louise commanded.  
  
The backup map room was one of Louise’s innovations in the field of tower design. It was a room. With maps. And calendars. And a large fireplace. And comfy chairs.  
  
It was revolutionary.  
  
Louise sat herself down in a comfy chair, and called for wine. Then she steepled her fingers together, the metal gauntlets clinking. “I have a plan how to get in and scout out the estate without having to risk my mother. I know my parents,” she said, flatly. “They aren’t as social as some other people. But they’re nobility, and they have obligations, to keep up standards if nothing else. My father will regularly go elsewhere to hunt with his old friends from the army, and my mother likewise has old friends and companions who she will visit. And then there are fetes and balls they have to attend, which involve going away from home.”  
  
The girl paused, frowning. “Ideally, the perfect date would be the Silver Pentecost, because they have an extensive visiting circuit and together are outside of the house. But that’s probably too long from now. Well, it’s a fallback date when I know that neither of them will be in the house. That’ll mean that it’ll just be the staff and Cattleya there, and she is sickly and spends most of her time in her room.” Louise sighed. “And she’s nice. And if she found me breaking in when she thought I was dead, she’d be more likely to die of shock than try to kill me.”  
  
She sighed again, trying to rid herself of morbid thoughts of her sickly sister. “She’ll be in the house, of course,” she said, “but she’s always ill and can’t even go riding without my father there to help her if she feels sick again. Bright light gives her splitting headaches, so she sometimes goes to the library at night and reads by candle, but still. She’ll either be in her room, in the library, or in the music room, so she’ll be easy to avoid. And Eleanore seldom comes home anymore, because she has rooms in Amstreldamme or stays in our townhouse in Bruxelles, so she won’t be an issue. And the rest will be the staff, and they’re just commoners.”  
  
One of the minions listening raised a hand. “So we no have to fight Karin?” it asked. “We only have to fight the bear carpet in her room? It not dead, you see; it just scared to move.”  
  
Louise drew in a breath. Louise let out a breath. “Yes,” she said, eventually. “Except my mother doesn’t have a bear carpet in her room.”  
  
“It escape?” the minion asked, sounding worried.  
  
“Anyway,” she continued, raising her voice and vowing to ignore that specific minion, “Gnarl, I assume there is some way for me to track a fragment of the tower heart, given that I control most of it? Possibly using the gauntlet.”  
  
“Got it in one, your maliciousness,” Gnarl said happily.  
  
“Wonderful,” Louise said, lips parting in a smirk. “Then all I need to do is sneak in – on my own – when my parents have gone to another estate for a gathering. I go in, avoid the servants, and track where the fragment is stored. I can probably search all the estate in one night, when everyone is asleep. Meanwhile,” she added hastily, “a crack force of minions will be waiting outside for my orders in case I need to do things like break into a vault I don’t know the entry for.”  
  
There were grumbles of unhappiness from the gathered horde.  
  
“After all,” Louise said, glaring at them, “one of my primary roles will be to make sure my mother is not there. Of course, any minions who want to go into a building where Karina of the Heavy Wind could be will be considered for a special suicide squad.”  
  
There was a collective gulp.  
  
“We not that crazy,” a red said, speaking for all of them. “We not fear her. It not fear to be scared of Karin. It logic.”  
  
“I will go!” a familiar foul-smelling green declared. “I braver than all you lot! I go with overlady to scout for her and... and if the Karin is there, I hide and hope she not see me!”  
  
“You stupider,” Maxy snapped. “Fettid, you idiot! There no be blue in there. If you get killed or fall in toilet, you dead forever!”  
  
“I willing to take that chance!” Fettid declared. “I not let overlady go into dangerous place like den of Karin without a minion to do looking for her!”  
  
Gnarl stroked his goatee. “Much as I think little of Fettid’s brains,” he said, “I do believe he accidentally was correct. Your evilness, please consider taking him as a single green minion with you. They can pass unseen, and so he can do things like scout ahead of you and make sure that there is no one in a room. Not to mention that he does have a very good sense of smell. And if everything does go wrong; why, he’ll be there to help with the backstabbing and murder!”  
  
It was the backstabbing and the murder which worried Louise, frankly. She did not want any of the murderous little monsters who followed her to be let into her parents’ house. There were breakable things in there, like expensive furniture, the serving staff, and her sickly sister.  
  
Then again, if she relented here and let one in where she could keep an eye on it, she could put her foot down on the others...  
  
“Fine,” she said, “as long as you are quite clear that if the minion fails me in there, I will not hesitate to have him killed. _Permanently_. There will be no room for errors like... l-like casual murders, do you understand me?”  
  
“Yep!” the minion said cheerfully.  
  
Louise doubted it. Oh well. She’d make it learn, if push came to shove-down-a-long-flight-of-stairs. “So,” she said, “in that case, I will use a... a secret entrance way which only I know about, and Fettid will come with me. I will explore the house, using the Gauntlet to search for the fragment. I should be able to check everywhere my father would probably put it in one night, which means that if it’s not there, I’ll need to come back and think again. Otherwise, I should be able to get it!” Yes, this was a good plan, and... hmm.  
  
“The main issue for this is what I’ll wear,” she continued. “Don’t laugh. I mean it.”  
  
“I don’t see what’s funny,” Gnarl said.  
  
“Yep!” Maxy contributed. “Clothing is deadly serious business. Very important.”  
  
Louise blinked. “Well, yes,” she said, her train of thought derailed. “Uh. Well, you see, I should wear something so even if I get seen, it won’t be too suspicious. That means the armour is right out, because everyone will find out if it’s seen that the dark overlady who killed the comte de Mott is breaking into the de la Vallière estate. I’ll need the gauntlet, but everything else stays behind... or stays with the minions who’ll be waiting outside, just in case,” she corrected herself. “Also, it’s noisy. Which means I should probably get Jessica to make me sneaking clothes, in black, with... like, a hood and a mask and all sorts of things to help me not be seen.”  
  
Maggat crossed his arms. “Nah,” he said, casually. “All you need is sheet. White.”  
  
“A white sheet. At night. When I am trying not to be seen.” Well, even the smarter minions were technically still _complete and utter idiots_ , Louise reminded herself.  
  
“Yeah, Maggat is right,” Maxy said. “You’re dead, right-right? That mean if you wear a white sheet, you a ghost. So they’ll go ‘argh we be haunted by dead daughter’ and it all be perfectly normal.” He turned to face Maxy. “But it should be thin sheet for her, like see through, and thick for Fettid.”  
  
“True, true,” Maggat said, pretending to stroke a goatee he did not have, before he yelped when Gnarl hit him over the back of the head with his walking stick.  
  
“I don’t believe what I’m hearing,” Louise said flatly.  
  
“Ah,” Maggat said proudly, “but your evilness! I not think you see how super-smart we is! See, because you wearing a sheet which is all thin and stuff, humies see your face and realise you ghost!”  
  
“And not get wary because not-see-through sheet make them think you just person mucking around in sheet,” Maxy agreed. “Even when you is!”  
  
The girl pursed her lips. She… why was she listening to them? What possible reason could she have for listening to… to this? It was madness! It was stupid!  
  
“Please, no need to shout. And for why, because we is masters of dis-guys, overlady,” Maggat said.  
  
“We dis all _kinds_ of guys,” Scyl agreed. “Fetid even get married to giant once, because we have to steal magical hammer back from race of one-eyed giants. So we find beautiful lady and Fettid loot her hair and dress and then Maggat made me be priesty to conduct marriage.”  
  
“I was best man!” Igni said.  
  
“They not suspect a thing,” Maxy said, crossing his arms. “Well, at least until Fettid stab one-eyed giant when he asleep, and then when he ask who do this thing I call in ‘no one’ and then when giant’s friends come in, they ask ‘who do this to you’ and he say ‘no one’.” Maxy paused. “Of course, then they say ‘it no look like no one, it look like someone stab you’ and giant say ‘no you stupids her name was no one oh the pain the pain’ and then they start looking for us when we trying to run away with hammer. So perhaps that plan could have gone better. But the disguise work perfect-like!”  
  
Louise worked her jaw. Wait. She was certain she had read that one-eyed giants were both lusty and none-too-bright and – vitally – long-sighted. So… maybe it was possible that a giant with poor eyesight – and no sense of smell – could mistake a minion for a human woman. She wasn’t sure _why_ a giant would want a human woman because… well, the mind boggled. Possibly it had been trying to trick them to be able to eat her later because… well, they weren’t that bright.  
  
Satisfied that she had a plausible chain of events set up, Louise felt it was safe to pay attention to the conversation once more.  
  
“... and in addition, your dark ladyship,” Gnarl was saying, “you have been spending rather a lot recently and so we are running low, especially after we had to pay Scarron for the information about the tower heart. Which is to say, to be honest, a sheet is about all you can afford. You can always wear your black robe underneath, so it does not work you can discard the sheet and they will think you have vanished.” Gnarl shook his head, sadly. “In the lives of all the great overlords, there always comes a time when they must break into a guarded place and not be seen. Many of them consider it a great annoyance which goes against everything they stand for. It is a good thing that you are taking this so well.”  
  
Sure. Why not? Why not buy into the madness? “Fine,” Louise said grumpily. “In which case, all we’ll need to find out is my parents’ social schedule, and I can decide the best night to strike.”

* * *

It was a cold, crisp night almost three weeks later as Louise – remarkably glad for her gauzy sheet because it kept her warmer – and Fettid snuck their way across the estate grounds of her family house. They had already made their way past the labyrinth and that pit with the strange red-brown stains at the bottom, and were passing some disturbing-looking statues when Fettid grabbed her by the hand and pulled her into a bush.  
  
It was not a comfortable bush, and she got the distinct feeling that she would need to wash her hand after touching him like that. Sadly, it had been her ungauntleted hand.  
  
However, his efforts had not been unprovoked, because, wuffling, a guard and his dog made their way past the bush, the creature sniffing the air. Louise peeked out, the crescent blue moon illuminating the icy landscape, trying not to breathe.  
  
After an eternal moment, the dog moved on, and its handler followed. Louise waited for a little longer, and let herself exhale. She tried not to inhale too deeply though, because that was not something you wanted to do when you were sharing a bush with Fettid.  
  
Then the two of them were on the move again; Louise keeping low and to the paths to avoid noise. The green minion was a blurred patch of air ahead of her, some kind of innate magic allowing him to simply... not be there. It was a very dangerous ability, she considered, and it would be even more dangerous if minions weren’t idiots.  
  
If only she could trust her greens to be able to spy on people without randomly breaking or murdering things, she could have an incredible spy network. But alas! They were thicker than a brick sandwich, with only occasional moments of base cunning to surprise her.  
  
Under moonlight, Louise navigated to the old lilac tree on the south side of the house. Hitching up her robe around her waist, she clambered up the tree, branches shaking under her. Carefully, she inched out along it, until she could make her way over to the elaborately gargoyle’d mantle by the branch, and clamber over. She edged along the mantle, testing each slippery gargoyle as she went, until she found the right place.  
  
Clinging on with her toes, the dark lady gave the window a thump right at the bottom, and it bounced slightly on its frame, tilting open. Louise grinned. Those times when she’d been locked out of her bedroom – and so not allowed to get to her books – had paid off. Working her fingers under the slight opening, she flicked the catch off, and leaned out of the way as the window opened. Then it was up and through closing the window behind her, making sure to softly whisper the magic words to prevent the alarm going off. She slithered through the window, ending up in a pile on the ground, and Fettid followed her through.  
  
Her room smelt slightly musty, though considering the conditions she had been living in for most of the past six months, ‘slight mustiness’ was no great offense. It was going to acquire an odour d’minion if she spent much time here, anyway.  
  
“Gnarl,” she said into her gauntlet. “I’m in my room. No one saw us getting in.”  
  
“ _Excellent, excellent,_ ” her advisor said, back in the nice warm tower. “ _Do what you need to do._ ” He was probably sitting by a warm fire. She hated him. Just a little bit.  
  
Fettid sniffed. “This house smell odd,” he said. “Blood. Death. It smell a bit like bottom of tower. But old and stale. Not fresh.”  
  
Her family was meant to have been evil, long ago, Louise thought. And... well, it was true, her mother usually had been very insistent about having fresh flowers in the house, for as long as she could remember. That brought to mind the fact that there were normally scented candles kept on the side, and Louise went groping in the dark to try to find a tinderbox to light them.  
  
“Oooh,” she heard behind her, “I find treasure in here. Lots of clothes. I wonder what my colour is?”  
  
“Don’t loot my dresses!” Louise hissed, trying to keep her voice down. “They’re mine!”  
  
Fettid, insofar as a green-skinned wolf-cat-monkey-thing could look heartbroken, looked heartbroken. “Not even one?” he asked forlornly. “I promise to do exactly what you say!”  
  
The overlady pursed her lips. “You may loot that blue one in the corner,” she commanded. “The one with the horrible purple bow on it.” She had grown out of it anyway, and blue had never really been her colour. She had preferred the pinks, the whites, the reds and the greys. It was almost as bad as that green monstrosity her mother had made her wear to her fourteenth birthday.  
  
Hmm, that was a point, she thought, as she finally found the tinderbox. She could probably pick up some changes of clothes on her way out of here. It’d be cheaper than ordering them from Jessica, and it wasn’t like she’d be found out by doing it. It’d just be blamed on the servants; everyone knew they stole clothes.  
  
Picking up the tinderbox, Louise lit one of the candles, and turned around, lifting it high.  
  
Oh dear.  
  
Oh no.  
  
There... there was a shrine set up on her bed. A painting of her, the one she’d had done at the start of her second year, just a few weeks before the abortive summoning, was propped up against the headboard, right where she would have rested her head. There were flowers, perhaps a day or two old sitting on the bed, too, and burned-out candles on saucers. And... and what looked to be prayers, handwritten sheets sealed with wax thumbprints.  
  
Feeling as if she was in a dream, Louise stumbled over to her bed, and sat down on it heavily. She picked up one of the prayers, from the bottom of the pile. It was dated about a week after the summoning ceremony. It was for her safe return.  
  
So was the next one.  
  
And the next one.  
  
And the next one.  
  
Moving through the sediment of abandoned faith, her eyes began to blur as she got towards the top. They stopped asking for her return in... in a hopeful manner. Hope became desperation. Desperation was joined by prayers for her soul in heaven.  
  
Eyes welling up, Louise de la Vallière blotted her eyes against her sleeve, the gauzy sheet she was wearing over her head getting damp. She was not the only one who had been crying. There were tear stains on some of the sealed prayers, too, and there was dampness on her bed.  
  
“Oh Cattleya,” she said, sadly. “I’m... I’m so sorry. I’m... please. It’ll only be a little longer.”  
  
Louise took a deep breath, and squared her jaw. She stood back up, and straightened out the picture which had slanted slightly, putting the prayers back in order. She took a gulping breath, and turned to face the dress-wearing minion behind her who by now had made an impromptu hemline by ripping everything which was too long off.  
  
“We... we need to move on,” she said, sadly. “I... let’s just find the fragment and get out of here. B-before. B-before I... before...” she wiped her eyes again, “before I get found by anyone.”


	16. Revamping the Tower 4-3

_“Evil is everywhere in the world. The slightest awareness of the state of affairs, the merest awareness of history is enough to make this abundantly clear. The royal family swings between righteous purity and foulest depravity like a metronome, my dear husband’s forefathers – including his mother and his father – were blackest villains, and even the Church seems to embrace corruption with distressing ease. Evil is how you act, and there is no excuse for Evil deeds. One is not Evil by nature; one is Evil by action, and no matter one’s parentage or inclination, Evil does not enter the heart until Evil deeds are performed which taint the heart and soul. Everyone can be good, if only they hold onto a righteous will of steel and conduct themselves in the proper manner.”_  
  
–  Karina de la Vallière

* * *

The light of the blue moon streamed in through the long glass windows of the hallway. In her soft shoes, ears open for the least noise, Louise de la Vallière padded through her ancestral home. A statue of a pointy-faced woman with her nose glowered at her as she passed, while beside her an oil-painted knight in black armour stood on a field of corpses. The busts and portraits of various ancestors stared down at her, judging her, watching her.  
  
Of course, given some of the reputation her family seemed to have, they were probably approving in their judgement. They were not very nice people.  
  
“Hey, is that tower?” Fettid said, pointing at the painting of a blonde woman wearing... uh, not much, standing in front of a black stone fortress topped by a pyre. “Nah, wrong stone. We used to have fire, though, before tower got knocked down. And she got gauntlet.”  
  
Louise examined that picture closer. Indeed, this woman – the name had been scored off – had a silver glove with prominent emeralds on it, which had been painted crackling with power. Louise’s heart sunk as she compared her own face to the woman. They had the same button nose, she thought, feeling her own. And something about the eyes looked similar, too. Of course, she was fairly sure she never wore that expression of distant, imperious and somewhat sultry arrogance.  
  
She also wore more clothing. Much more. She sincerely hoped this probably-an-ancestor of hers had died from a stab to the heart. Tassels were not protective!  
  
“I’m not you,” she whispered to the painting, before turning her back on it and continuing her way along to her parents’ bedroom. It was up another flight of stairs, and she nearly stumbled into an annoyingly silent guard along the way. Only the small pool of light from his candle was enough to alert her, and she managed to dart back around the corner and hold her breath.  
  
Her heart sounded like a drum in her ears.  
  
He moved on, though, and she could breathe again.  
  
“Should let me kill him. As warning,” Fettid muttered.  
  
“No killing,” she commanded as quietly as she could manage.  
  
“Aww. But I smell blood already,” the minion whined. “Why can I no kill when other kill happen?”  
  
“It’s probably just the kitchens,” she said, pacing over to her parents’ bedroom and squeezing through the crack she opened up. Fettid made a small whimper of fear as he stepped over the threshold.  
  
“I no can believe I am in the bedroom of the Karin and I is not dead,” he breathed.  
  
“Keep talking and you might be,” Louise said, waving her hand around the room hoping for some response. “Gnarl? How should it feel if the fragment is nearby?”  
  
“ _Ah, your evilness. You’re still alive,_ ” Gnarl said, with a little too much surprise for Louise’s happiness. “ _You should certainly be getting a warm vibration if the gauntlet is within twenty or so yards of the fragment. The stronger the closer, of course._ ”  
  
“What’s a yard?” Louise hissed, and blinked. “Oh yes, your silly thing that is almost a metre, but not as big. So... nothing in here... so it’s probably not here. I’ll look around a bit in here, and then head to the library. Touch nothing,” she warned Fettid.  
  
The minion folded its hands behind its back. “I get it,” it said. “Also, the bear rug not here, so I need to watch out for it wandering around. I protect you from it.”  
  
Louise exhaled, and busied herself with looking for things which might inform her where a magical evil crystal might be. Sadly, although she found her father’s diary on his bedside table, it was written in code. It was probably something he did just to keep some privacy in a room shared with her mother. And it was only the most recent one, and she had no idea where his older ones might be kept.  
  
“Gnarl,” she whispered, holding her gauntlet over the first page. “Can you decode this?”  
  
“ _Not quickly, your evilness,_ ” the voice said back, after a little humming to itself. “ _And possibly not at all. Just at a glance, it does not look like it’s a simple substation cipher; I can’t see any pattern to recurring letters. And that vampire sold off all my decryption artefacts, curse his soul. You were too fast killing him._ ”  
  
“Fine,” Louise sighed, putting the diary back where she had found it. There was no point taking it. If it had been one from ten years ago... but not his most recent one. Also it was probably wrong to take your father’s secret diary and read it. So she was being a good girl by not doing so.  
  
So caught up in her thoughts and her search was she that she nearly missed the trail of footsteps outside and the candlelight painting a trail of orange light into the blue-lit room.  
  
“Hello?” someone called from outside. “Is someone in there?” A snuffling. “What’s that smell?”  
  
Mercifully, Fettid did not answer ‘yes’ and had instead vanished to... somewhere. Which just left Louise standing in the middle of the room, desperately looking for somewhere to hide when the door swung all the way open to reveal a dark-haired, wide-eyed maid carrying a candle.  
  
Louise stared at the maid.  
  
The maid stared back at her.  
  
“Woooo,” Louise tried desperately.  
  
The other woman squeaked.  
  
“Uaargharh,” the overlady added, in a fit of creativity. “Oooooo. Woooooooooo.”  
  
There was a scream in the dead of the night which echoed through the house, and the woman ran off. The building stirred to life, as people were drawn to it. Poking her head out the door, Louise could already see another maid with a candle who must have been close by, comforting the first. She couldn’t get out that way. The wardrobe? No, that’d be silly. The other side rooms? No, they’d look there.  
  
Her gaze drifted over towards the bed, illuminated in the blue light of the moon streaming in through the window.

* * *

“You must be seeing things!” the housekeeper said, holding a poker in one hand and a candle aloft in the other  
  
“I know what I saw!” the dark-haired maid retorted, shivering like a leaf. “It... it was a girl! With pink hair! But pale like a corpse and… hazy and... and dressed in white and... it... sh-she moaned at me!”  
  
“A pink-haired girl?” the other woman asked sceptically. “Are you sure it wasn’t, you know... Miss Cattleya? Given that she is the pink-haired girl currently in residence?”  
  
“No, no! Trust me, Miss Cattleya is bust... has larger... the girl was fl... it certainly wasn’t Miss Cattleya! And she’s retired for the evening, anyway.”  
  
The housekeeper stepped briskly around the room, checking the smaller rooms connecting to the main chamber and the cupboards. She even looked under the bed. “There’s no one here,” she said.  
  
“I know what I saw,” the maid insisted. “I feel the cold! It’s... it’s like icy fingers running up and down my spine!”  
  
“It is cold in here,” the housekeeper admitted, “but...”  
  
There was a rasp of breath, as the butler – who had somehow managed to enter the room without being noticed - spoke. “What’s all this then?” he asked, causing both the housekeeper and the maid to flinch.  
  
“The chit thought she saw a figure in here and screamed, Monsieur Blanc, but I have looked around and found not one sign that...”  
  
The maid looked uneasy. “I thought it looked like… like Mistress Louise” she breathed. “But... she’s dead. So… it moaned at me... and...”  
  
The butler cleared his throat. “Oh, don’t worry then,” he said kindly in his dry voice. “It’ll just be a perfectly normal haunting then.”  
  
“Uh…” the maid said nervously.  
  
“Oh, of course, you’re too young,” the old man said. “We used to have a fine collection of ghasts, spectres, haunts, geister, and pretty much any form of ghost you care to mention here. We got to know them, you know. The old master cultivated them, you know. Made sure his victims formed ghosts. And his wife… oh, she was a cousin and she was a wonder with them. Really knew how to work those torture chambers. Those were the times.” The butler’s face hardened. “Then his Good-for-everything son inherited along with that dreadful wife of his, packed the old mistress off to a monastery-jail and they went and wiped the entire collection out! It was dreadful!”  
  
He nodded confidently. “Feel the chill in here? Sign of a good honest haunting. Oh, I’ve missed the feeling. Though,” he added darkly, “Liza, you should probably clean this place up tomorrow morning. The ghast might have left blood or ectoplasm on the walls or slashed all the paintings or something like that, and it’d be a frightful shame if the master or the mistress went and hunted down the first ghost we’ve had in years. Smell the foul stench. A real sign of proper dark forces, that is.”  
  
“I’ll get on it,” the housekeeper said, peering through the darkness with her handle aloft. She seemed oddly cheerful at the news, and her earlier opprobrium towards the maid had entirely vanished. “Oh, my mother passed tales down to me of been ravished in the night by Don Juanito, that Iberian ghost who one of the family had horribly killed after she found him sleeping with her husband when he was meant to be her boy-toy. I was so looking forwards to that when I started working here. Shame.”  
  
“You know what they say about the family,” the butler said, his voice dropping. “Don’t trust ‘em to stay dead, and don’t think they’re dead until you’ve got the corpse.” The man grinned perhaps a little too widely. “Oh, the current duke’s a softy who’s letting down the family, but my father and grandfather and his father have all been in service here, and bein’ haunted by a dead daughter is perfectly normal for the de la Vallières. I mean, this’s Mistress Louise we’re talking about. She broke things and blew things up in life; we’re probably going to be seeing a rash of poltergeist activity! Good times, good times.” He pulled out a key from around his neck. “Just to be sure, I’ll lock the door and you can see to this in the morning.”  
  
The door scraped closed and there was a click as the lock was turned. And clinging onto the outside of the building next to the window, gripping onto one of the gargoyles for dear life, Louise gave a moan of frustration. They weren’t meant to lock the door!  
  
She was also rather irate that the da... the dratted idea of the minions that she should wear a sheet and pretend to be a ghost had _worked_ , but that was a much lower priority to her than the prospect of a fatal fall. Oh, and when she had worry to spare about things, she’d need to remember to get angry at the butler for being an utterly horrible man and bad-mouthing her parents. When she got back home properly, she’d need to have him fired.  
  
_Without_ references!  
  
But again, imminent death was more important. So. If she pulled herself up slightly and tried to reach the next gargoyle up, she could manage to slip on the icy surface, scream, grab the ears of the stone figure with both hands and then furiously scrabble with her feet as she tried to get a grip, any grip at all, to avoid her falling all the way to the ground.  
  
That didn’t help matters at all. In fact, it made them rather worse.  
  
Oh, why wasn’t she a proper mage who could use levitation spells? Why... why hadn’t she thought to try to see if she could learn levitation spells instead of spending all her time practicing with fire and lightning? Maybe... maybe if she shot fire down at the ground when she fell, she might be able to slow her fall?  
  
No, that was a stupid idea.  
  
Founder. This was just an _embarrassing_ way to die.  
  
“Mistress!” Her pungent knight in shining... uh, an old dress of hers leant down from over the top of the gargoyle, ape-like arms reaching out. “Take hand! I get you out of this!”  
  
Pathetically gratefully, Louise took its hand. Never before had she quite appreciated just how casually strong the little goblinoids were, because with one hand Fettid dragged her up, leaving her sprawling on the room. Quivering and panting, Louise clung to it, gripping onto the thankful solidity.  
  
“Overlady not good at climbing,” Fettid said cheerfully, dangling his legs over the side of the ledge.  
  
“No,” Louise gasped. “Overlady not.” Raising herself up slightly, she pulled herself along the roof, away from the edge. “And overlady... I mean, and _I_ think I need a way down.”  
  
“It a puzzler,” the green-skinned minion said. “Normally, if I too lazy to climb, I jump off and let blue rez me at bottom, but blue no around and anyway the overlady no can come back from dead place without big Evil ritual and chanting and such things and humies start to rot when they come back from dead. Unlike minions. Well, unless we get nasty sickness. Usually best way to get over icky sickness is to die and come back. Much faster.”  
  
Louise could not help but contrast this nonchalance with the fear of death which was still filling her blood with fire and her mind with ice-cold spikes. “You know, I wonder what it’s like being you,” she said, idly. She thought. “It’s probably a very stupid existence.” She thought some more. “Yes, very stupid indeed... Fettid, stop trying to lever up my parents’ roof tiles this instant!”  
  
“I smell blood,” Fettid sang, childishly. “It prob’bly because bear got loose and killed servants, so I get weapon to fight it with.”  
  
She sighed. Her heart was no longer pounding in her ears, and to the east, the red moon was rising. It was just as well, because the blue moon was moving behind a patch of cloud. She should probably get off the roof before it went away, because the red light was rather dimmer than the blue. How to get down? She pursed her lips. Yes... Cattleya always slept with the window open, because she needed fresh air because of her condition. And she had a balcony – which Louise had always been so jealous of, but now came in handy. If she made her way across the roofs to there... Cattleya should probably be asleep by now, and so she could sneak through her sister’s room.  
  
The fact that she would get to see her again, even if she was asleep at the time was not a contributing factor to why she had thought of it. Not at all.  
  
“Come on,” she ordered, beginning to work her way along the roof on all fours. “And catch me if I fall!”  
  
It was a hair-raising trip over the top of the de la Vallière estate, made worse by the clouds which blotted out the blue moon entirely, leaving only the crimson light to make her way across the icy surface. It was not a moment too soon when she recognised the ivy-covered chimney which connected up to Cattleya’s room. In the cold, its smoke was a welcome sight.  
  
“Blood, bloodity blood blood,” the green-skinned minion next to her sang happily. “Blood blood bloody, blood-blood, blood-bloodity. Blood, blood, blood blood blood, bloodity bloodity blood bloody bloody blood, bloody blood bloodity...”  
  
“Shut it,” she hissed. After enough repetition, the word ‘blood’ even stopped being a word and started just being background noise. Annoying background noise. “Do you want to wake her?”  
  
“Oh, she awake,” the minion said innocently. “Or at least there two women in room. I hears them.”  
  
“Drat,” Louise muttered. That was that shot. Silly older sisters, staying up late. That was bad for her health! Why, if she wasn’t technically breaking into her own house to steal an artefact, she’d give Cattleya a right telling off for putting her health in danger like this. “Well, there are rose trellises growing up to her balcony,” she said, after a moment’s thought. “It’s winter, so the roses’ll be dead, and I should be able to climb down. I’ll... drat, drat, probably have to work my way around the building and go back in through my room, but it should be doable.”  
  
“Want me to help you down?” Fettid asked her.  
  
“...” Louise did not say. “... fine.”  
  
Yes, she was definitely going to need to wash her hands, she thought, as the minion lowered her down onto the balcony by the simple expediency of taking her hand and leaning over the edge. It was just as well she was thinking that, because otherwise she might go quite mad because a smelly goblin had her life in its hands. She was remarkably happy to get down to the balcony, and in fact clutched onto the wall for a good few seconds.  
  
She could hear voices from inside the room. Low and muttered; one of them was clearly Cattleya’s, while the other was softer and rather less talkative. Louise just listened for a moment, warring with the temptation inside her. How long would Cattleya and... whoever it was, possible her maid... be in there? If it was the maid, maybe Cattleya was going to bed and she could sneak through in a short while.  
  
Lord and Founder, she really wanted to see her sister.  
  
Just a peek then.  
  
Louise took her peek, and screamed.  
  
“M-mother!” Cattleya stammered, whirling around to stare at the pink-haired figure in the window as the other girl on the bed squeaked. “It’s not what it looks like!”  
  
Louise severely doubted that. She was almost certain it was exactly what it looked like. Her sister had her head between the wide-open legs of another girl, who had her skirt rolled up to her waist. The girl – a maid by the looks of it – was slack-jawed and vacant-eyed. And there were fluids smearing her sister’s jaw.  
  
No, whatever Cattleya might say, it was _exactly_ what it looked like.  
  
Her sister had _certainly_ sunk her fangs into the thigh of the other woman and had been drinking her blood.  
  
“Cattleya!” she shrieked in horror and rage. “You’re... you’re... you’re a...”  
  
Her red-mouthed, sharp-fanged older sister stared back in fear and shock which almost equalled her own. “L-L-Louise!” Cattleya stammered, pointing at her sister with a quavering finger. “Y-you... are you a ghost? You’re dead!”  
  
“So are you!” Louise snapped back. “And I’m not a ghost! I’m just wearing a sheet! That’s not important! You’re the dead one here, not me! Undead is still dead! You’re a bloody vampire!”  
  
Her sister’s eyes widened. “I am?” she asked. Hurriedly, she rummaged through her pockets, and pulled out a handkerchief, dabbing at her mouth. “Is it gone?” she asked, nervously. “I really can’t tell. Sorry, but mirrors don’t work for me and…”  
  
The sheer surreality of the situation managed to momentarily quench Louise’s wrath. “It’s gone,” she conceded. “But… but you’re still a vampire!”


	17. Revamping the Tower 4-4

_“Some might ask how one can find the most evil, the most wicked, the most sinful and depraved of women. It is quite simple. My personal studies of faith and of the souls of that inferior sex has revealed to me that all the most degenerate women are poorly endowed, and so the righteous surround themselves with those who are full in the chest. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, it shows that the Lord God has not smiled upon them, reviling them for their evilness. But also, it is a simple matter of anatomy. You see, in a well-bosomed woman, the largeness of her chest draws evil away from her heart, where it taints not her thoughts, while in one who is less endowed it is compressed and malignant. Naturally, one can only judge an adult by this, but have you not seen how children are malicious and sinful unless beaten? And of course this does not apply to men, who are not subject to the lustiness of women.”_   
  
–  Pope Aegis X, 'Lectures on the Wickedness of Women, Part XVI

* * *

The two sisters made a strange tableau. On one side, Louise, eyes burning yellow-pink, was wearing a gauzy sheet over her comfortable dark clothes. On the other, a decidedly dishabille Cattleya was clad in a skimpy nightgown, eyes a dull crimson, fangs bared in shock. The two sisters looked similar, but Cattleya was more rounded, more curvy compared to Louise’s more angular figure.  
  
“W-wait, so you’re not a ghost?” Cattleya asked carefully, before breaking into a pointy-toothed smile. “Oh, Louise, I’m so happy for you! Oh, unless you’re a ghost who’s lying to me about not being dead, or you don’t know that you’re dead. But even if that’s the case, I’m still really happy you’re choosing to haunt me! Don’t worry, I’ll try to explain everything to Mother and Father! They’ve come to a way of handling me safely; I’m sure they won’t mind having another dead daughter!”  
  
She paused for breath. “Well, of course they’ll be very sad and unhappy that you passed away, but still! At least ghost-hood isn’t as bad as having to put up with drinking the blood of the living, so there’s that! Also, I think you’d technically be another undead daughter, but still! Do you remember how you died?”  
  
Hmm. It certainly appeared to be Cattleya, as opposed to a horrifying fiend out to consume the blood of the living in a tormented mockery of life. And... Louise’s knees felt like jelly, and she sagged, grabbing the window frame for support. “Mother and Father... know?” she whispered. “They’re... they know and... they’re fine with it?” She paused. “Also, no, Catt, I’m not dead and... they’re fine? How can they be fine? You’re a vampire! That’s not fine at all! That’s the opposite of fine. That is un-fine.”  
  
“Well,” Cattleya said, sitting herself down on the bed and straightening out her nightgown, “no, they’re not fine. Louise, please, sit down, I don’t want you to fall down and hurt yourself. You’re alive, you say? So either you don’t remember how you died, or you... just have been gone for nearly nine months!” Cattleya blushed. “Louise! Did you get... is there a child? Is that why you were gone for nine months? Do I have an adorable little niece or nephew and when do I get to meet them? Oh, this is wonderful! Have you picked out a name yet? Can I help?”  
  
Louise would have massaged her temples if she had not currently been using her hands to keep herself upright. She was starting to remember one of the more difficult elements of talking with Cattleya when she got a ‘good idea’ into her head. “No,” she said hotly, “I did not get pregnant! And I’m not dead! And I’m not a ghost!” She cleared her throat. “I... I... uh, ended up as a dark lady of a ruined tower after I ran away after my summoning and I’ve been trying to overthrow the Council of Regents and restore Princess Henrietta to her rightful position and... uh...” she trailed away.  
  
Wow. When she put it like that – and this was the first time she had really said it out loud – it was very... uh… _very_. It was full of veryness. Veryness abounded.  
  
“Oh.” Cattleya’s voice fell. “That’s going to be rather harder to explain to Mother than you just being a ghost.” She paused, realisation dawning. “You’re that overlady in the north, aren’t you? The one who killed the comte de Mott!”  
  
“That’s why she can’t find out, Catt! And why you weren’t even meant to see me and... and it’s your fault for making me scream because you’re a vampire! Why are you a vampire? _How_ are you a vampire? How long have you been one?”  
  
Cattleya sucked in a breath. “Define ‘vampire’,” she suggested. “I mean, it’s kind of been getting worse for years, but it all started about ten years ago when I got bitten by Louis de la Vallière, called by some the Bloody Duke, because Eleanore had raided his tomb and disturbed his rest.”  
  
“Ten years ago,” Louise said flatly. This had to be related to how her father had obtained the fragment ten years ago! It had to be! “Eleanore did _what?_ ”  
  
“Raided the tomb of our... is it five greats, or six? Well some-number-of-greats-grandfather,” Cattleya said. “During the holidays, back when she was at the Academy, she broke into the tomb of Louis de la Vallière, broke the wards on his grave, and... well, she says she didn’t take anything and was just curious, but I have my doubts.” Cattleya pouted. “Mother and Father very nearly disowned her for doing that.”  
  
“Louis... Louis,” Louise said slowly. It was familiar. And not just because it was the masculine version of her own name. “I’ve heard Gnarl mention that name.”  
  
“It’s not surprising. He’s the source of the royal blood in the family, and was utterly, utterly horrid. Before him, the de la Vallière family wasn’t that bad,” Cattleya said soberly. “I mean, yes, there were occasionally nasty people, but nastiness sadly happens among the nobility. But Louis de la Vallière was a bastard son of the king, and he was wicked to the bone. Worse than his father, and since his father was Charles the Vile that was horrible indeed.  
  
“But Louis de la Vallière was clever, cunning and ambitious; a real cut above the petty wickedness of his peers. His mother – who wasn’t a nice woman herself – passed the duchy to him and went to live in a monastery when he was twenty. And he kept things looking mostly normal. Except slowly the land got sicker and sicker. Orc and goblin tribes started occupying those lands near the Germanian border. The dead started rising and he would ride out and ‘destroy them’… but only after his lesser noble tenants had been ruined and had to take loans from him. There were famines in the bad weather, and in some remote villages they had to turn to cannibalism… and well, you know how people who do that become ghouls. His children took after him in temperament, too.”  
  
Louise paled. “And Mother and Father named me after him?” she asked in disbelief.  
  
Cattleya shook her head. “No, I think they just liked the name ‘Louise’,” she said. “Or maybe they were trying to redeem the name.” She raised an eyebrow at her little sister. “That… uh, may not quite have worked. I think I wanted them to call you ‘Henrietta’, but that was mostly because that’s what they’d just called the princess. And Eleanore wanted a little brother.” She shook her head. “But yes. Father found out everything he could about him, because he basically had him as an example of what-not-to-do.   
  
“At some point, the Bloody Duke turned his dabbling in necromancy using water magic into handling raw Evil, according to Father. And then to avoid death, he went out and hunted down the biggest and nastiest vampires he could find, and then made them fight and eat each other to find who was the most powerful one of them. And then became a vampire, and killed and ate that vampire. And then some other vampires he’d found to steal their power. And also some demons, dragons… pretty much everything he could to try to get even more power.”  
  
“That’s… horrible,” Louise breathed.  
  
“ _That certainly is,_ ” Gnarl said in her ear gleefully, revealing that he had been listening in to the conversation. Louise had a nasty feeling she would be hearing more on this subject from him when she got back to the tower, it sounded like the sort of vile atrocities he liked. And the dratted Jester would probably taunt her about it, too. Something like ‘Heir to a Proud Legacy’ or some insufferable stupidity like that.  
  
“So...” Cattleya continued, not noticing the way Louise’s right eye was twitching slightly, “at some point he got torn to shreds by an angry werewolf, but... uh. He didn’t die properly. Or whatever the proper word is; I’m not sure. Some kind of dark working he’d carried out, anchored in something of a terrible evil, meant that even being reduced to ashes didn’t kill him properly. He had bound his soul so tightly to his body that it could never escape, Father says. Feeding off life energy of the world around him. Or something like that. Father says he’s been trying for years to kill him properly, but all he can do is keep him trapped. And that’s the same way he stops the Bloody Duke from controlling me.”  
  
Something of a terrible evil. Oh dear. But wait... no! Her father had _bought_ the fragment of the tower heart ten years ago. The overlady began to nibble on the fingernails of her left hand as she thought, moving into the room properly to warm herself by the fire.  
  
“Louise,” Cattleya scolded her, “don’t bite your nails.”  
  
Louise took her fingers out of her mouth. “Who’s this?” she said, pointing at the girl on the bed who had been lying there silently, staring at her.  
  
“Oh,” her older sister said, “that’s my maid. She helps me with all _kinds_ of things.”  
  
“Like feeding,” she said flatly.  
  
Cattleya blushed. “Well, not officially.”  
  
Louise stared suspiciously at the dull-eyed girl who was looking incuriously at her. “Did you use evil vampire magic on her to make her like that?” she demanded. “She should be more surprised to see me!”  
  
Cattleya’s eyes widened. “No, of course not!” she said, sounding offended. “Anne was kicked in the head by a donkey when she was little, poor girl, so she’s simple. Mother and father assigned me her as a maid because she doesn’t ask questions and doesn’t get suspicious about the little things, like the fact I don’t have a pulse when she dresses me. I mean, she knows, but I’m not entirely sure she understands. And most mornings she has to work out how to heat up water from scratch. But she’s very sweet and caring and she likes my animals. And it’s good to be taking care of someone this unfortunate.” Cattleya smiled, showing just a hint of fang. “She’s very huggy indeed,” she said.  
  
“And the blood drinking,” Louise said flatly.  
  
The older girl coughed, sitting by her maid and stroking her brow. “I... ahem... would get in rather a lot of trouble if Mother found out about that,” she admitted, tapping her index fingers together. “I’m... sort of not allowed at all to do that. I’m only allowed animals. But Mother only checks the neck and the arms and the torso for bite marks. And I am very careful when doing it, and Anne doesn’t mind, do you?”  
  
The girl shook her head. “I like Miss Cattleya,” she said, softly. “She is nice. Not like men.”  
  
“Yes, some men were being... unkind to my little sweetums,” Cattleya said cheerily. “Then I found out, and would you believe it, two of them found God and joined the church and the other ran off to join a travelling show! Well, they did. I can’t imagine why! Strong strapping men like that wouldn’t be scared by... why, by pretty much about anything. Strangely enough, quite a few of the men in the surrounding villages who have been unpleasant to my little birdies - and anyone else who has been cruel to animals - have had some dreadful frights which had led them to righteously change their ways. Which is jolly nice of them, I think.” She grinned. “It really gives you hope for the decency of humanity, doesn’t it?”  
  
Louise giggled. Her head was still swimming at the revelation, but... Cattleya was still Cattleya. She’d only not known about this before; her sister had... well, that was the question.  
  
“How did it happen?” she asked.  
  
“What?” her sister asked.  
  
“The whole v-... v-word thing,” Louise said.  
  
“Ah,” Cattleya said, eyes narrowing momentarily. “Well, I’d actually expected to have to tell you earlier – Louise, you’re kind of inobservant, you know – so...” she got up, and recovered several sheets of paper from under her bed, “... I prepared these!”

* * *

It is a dark and stomy night. Through storm-wracked clouds, a full moon shines down, deep red and bloody, casting the world into crimson hues. Outside, a wolf howls. And hark! Through yonder window we see our heroine – innocent, beautiful, naive – tossing and turning. It is the height of summer and the muggy heat of the darknight storm is intolerable. If things would but cool down, it would be more tolerable, but it has been sweltering in the day and the rain brings only frightful humidity.  
  
She kicks off her covers, rises from her bed. With her wand she – so proud is she of this little spell – lights up her room with a wavering light, and makes her way over to the window. A puppy sleeps on the floor; graceful as a cat she steps over it. Dramatically, chest-heaving, she throws the shutters and the windows wide open. The air is moist, smelling of rain, and she sighs in happiness at the welcome relief, before returning to bed.  
  
And what is that? What terrible tenebral terror, a transient trick treading on tremulous toes, takes a some-other-word-beginning-with-‘t’ path up to the window of our fair maiden? What gleaming eyes glow hungry in the dark, what barbarous fangs catch the light?  
  
(That’s the baddy, by the way.)  
  
Under bloody-hued moon his shadow creeps along the wall, a patch of darkness in a red-cast world. Something fluttered in the dark, and then the man – pale, sunken-eyed, a veritable walking corpse with long fingernails and teeth – is in her room, standing in the window. His shadow is cast over her sleeping form. Slowly, he approaches.  
  
He also kicks the puppy out the window. What a dastardly scoundrel! And the yelp wakes our brave rosy-haired damsel, who looks up in horror at the charnel monster which looms over her.  
  
“Oh no!” the fair maiden says, clutching her hands to the bosom she does not in fact have, because she is, you know, ten. And then she screams.  
  
The beast descends.

* * *

Louise stared at her sister from her seat on the bed next to her. “Is that really what happened?” she asked accusingly.  
  
“Well... more or less,” Cattleya admitted. “I mean, I was ten at the time and it was really scary, but I think that’s pretty much what I remember. I might have elaborated on things a bit. I’m not actually sure myself, because after it started happening I got frightfully weak and started seeing things that weren’t there.”   
  
She shifted, slightly uncomfortably. “Also, I got a bit carried away writing that and so it sort of leaves out that it wasn’t just one time. He kept on taking more and more, night by night. Father eventually noticed the bite marks when I started getting very, very sick and started getting cravings for raw meat. You might remember when I collapsed at dinner?”  
  
“No,” Louise said.  
  
“Well, you were six at the time. That was when he found out, anyway. And then he sent Mother away to get something he thought might help while he spent all his time around me, trying to make me stronger, but… well, by that point I was half-dead already and very, very sick and vampirism fights normal healing magic, even from a square-class. He could stop me getting any worse, but…” Cattleya shrugged. “By the time Mother got back from whatever she was doing, I was barely hanging on.”  
  
Cattleya’s voice was desperately sad when she continued, “And then... well, when Mother and Father went out to do what they had to do to bring the Bloody Duke under control, trying to stop the sickness by killing the one responsible, I... slipped away some time in the night. By that I mean ‘died’. Or undied. And they didn’t even managed to kill that horrid, horrid man!” she added, eyes burning crimson. “I mean, not permanently. Mother said that she sliced him up into lots of little bits, sort of like Germanian sausage, but he just reformed. I mean, this is Mother we’re talking about so she just did it again, but still.”  
  
The maid, Anne, sat up and draped herself around Cattleya’s shoulders. “Don’t be sad, Miss Cattleya,” she said quietly. “It isn’t fun to be unhappy.”  
  
The hug seemed to calm her down a little. “Well, that was the end of my life metaphorically as well as literally,” she said. “There was no way I was going to get to go to the Academy, and they started putting around the story that I had come down with a wasting sickness. And they had to call off my marriage, and rearrange things so you’d be marrying Jean-Jacques instead of me.”  
  
Louise went limp. “My... the marriage... it was a lie?” she said weakly. “I... I was second-best?”  
  
“There, there,” Cattleya said, wrapping a slightly chill arm around her head. “I’m sorry you had to find out and our parents weren’t going to mention it, but yes. You were just six, remember? They’d arranged the marriage when he was fifteen and already a square-ranked prodigy, and I was nine. Then when I was ten, I ended up like this, and they had to scramble to talk him into accepting their six year old instead.” She grinned, sadly. “I’m fairly sure you got a rather larger dowry than I would have,” she said. “And having grown up... I don’t think I would have been happy with a man like him anyway. He’s too militaristic and too hard. Of course, you lost him too, because everyone thought you were dead.”  
  
Louise sniffed. “It’s just...” she said weakly, “... everyone was lying to me and... and... it’s not fair and...” she snivelled. “I didn’t mean to spend so long away,” she said weakly. “I ended up trapped in a tower with a really horrible vampire who I... uh, killed when he tried to kill me and then I accidentally collapsed the entrance and... by the time I got out, it had been months and Princess Henrietta had been arrested and... do you have _any idea_ how long it’s been since I’ve been able to talk to a normal person? It’s... not fair.” She glanced at her still-upset sister. “And Cattleya! Poor you! Oh, it’s not fair on you, either. I shouldn’t be turning it into being something about me. It’s... just so much so quickly and I’ve missed you so.”   
  
Something in her was screaming that she was an idiot to let a vampire have an arm around her neck like this and that they were just blood sucking monsters, like the one who had killed the child back in the tower, but... but...  
  
... this was Cattleya. And from what she’d said, as long as she could remember, Cattleya had been like this. She just hadn’t known.  
  
Plus, she was a fully-fledged, regent-killing dark lady. She... she probably counted as a worse person than a vampire who didn’t kill people.  
  
“You’re jolly right it’s not fair on me,” Cattleya said, a note of steel entering her voice. “I hate this dratted state of affairs. It’s a load of sugar and... and I know our parents are right, but Founder! Some nights I have had it up to here with this flipping sugar and just want to go out and open up some throats.” She paused. “Which would be wrong and so I don’t do it,” she added. “If you really did kill a bad vampire, then I’m proud of you, Louise. I try very hard to be a good person, even when I’m utterly _sick_ of cow blood night after night. And so sometimes I’m a little weak and indulge in a few mouthfuls when Mother isn’t here, but that’s all! I know it’s wrong and I feel awfully guilty about it! And Mother would kill me.”  
  
“Me too, if she knew what I was doing,” Louise said, with a bubbling hiccup. “I... I spend a lot of time feeling guilty about the things I do.” Not as much time as she really should, but perhaps Cattleya didn’t precisely need to know that. Anyway, she wasn’t a vampire and was doing the things she did to save Henrietta, so that made things different.  
  
“What are you doing here?” Cattleya asked, curiously. “Oh yes, Anne, please go and make some tea for my guest.” Slowly the other girl unwrapped herself from Cattleya, and shuffled off. “That’ll keep her busy for at least five minutes while she tries to remember where the kettle is kept in the maisonette,” the older girl said quietly.  
  
“I could do with some tea,” Louise agreed. “I... I used to not drink much of it, but the minions like it and there really... there really isn’t much else to drink if you don’t want to drink wine that’s probably made of mushrooms. And I don’t trust the water if it’s not boiled.”  
  
“Poor you,” Cattleya said. “I suppose that’s a bit of living in a dark tower which the stories always miss. I mean, I suppose it’s easy for the established forces of Evil who have money and the like, but you sound like you’re working from a rather lower class of evil base.”  
  
Louise nodded sadly. “Lord, yes. It’s bad at times.” She shook her head. “As for why I’m here... I think it might be related. You see, there’s a fragment of the tower heart... which is a giant crystal thing at the centre of the tower which does things like lets me teleport to places... which Father apparently got his hands on ten years ago and... well. According to the books I’ve read, if a tower heart gets too damaged, it – and all the bits taken from it, no matter how far away – blow up in a horrible magical explosion.” She paused. “There were pictures. They were scary.”  
  
“Well, we certainly don’t want that!” Cattleya said firmly. “Horrible magical explosions are never a good sign.” She paused. “Except when they’re done by good people, of course,” she added, and crossed her arms. “I suppose I should help you look for it. In the name of avoiding horrible magical explosions. And if it was part of what happened ten years ago... you know the secret lake?”  
  
“Oh yes,” Louise said, a glimmer of hope in her voice. “That was my special childhood place, you know. I have a lot of fond...”  
  
“Well, the marble building on the island in the centre is the mausoleum of Louis de la Vallière, so it’ll be there.” Cattleya paused. “Or is it a tomb? Or an ossuary? I’m sorry, for one of the living dead I really don’t know my way around tombs! I just sleep in my room with soil under my mattress and thick curtains.”  
  
... well, that was a bunch of childhood memories ruined, Louise didn’t have the heart to say. Though at least she now knew why whenever she had tried to row a boat over to the island at the centre of the lake, the current had mysteriously picked up and pushed her away. Clearly, that was part of the warding on the island.  
  
“Well, then,” Louise said instead, “I’ll gather up the minions I left outside, and you and I can go see.”  
  
“Wonderful!” Cattleya said, clapping her hands together. “I’ll go get a weapon, then! I think that’s traditional!” Rising, she made her way over to the door and stepped out for a moment. Morbidly interested, Louise followed her. Stretching up onto her tiptoes, Cattleya lifted a large double-handed sword off the wall and hefted it, testing it in first one hand and then the other, before returning to the room.  
  
“… isn’t that a little heavy?” Louise asked dubiously, staring at her big sister hefting a sword which more resembled a bulky spear than it did anything a lady might use in one hand.  
  
“A bit,” Cattleya said. “Do you think I’m out of shape? I’m sorry, but exercising makes me hungry! And it wouldn’t be morally righteous to do that! And I just hate when I get too hungry and accidentally kill a bird!”  
  
Louise stared. “Catt,” she said bluntly. “It’s the same height as you are, and made of solid steel. It… it probably weighs a tonne or something!” She squinted in the darkness at the plaque under where it had been hanging. “God only knows what kind of a person used it in the first place.”  
  
“Wolfgang von Zerbst. ‘Thought to Try a Frontal Assault: Rest in Pieces’… that’s ‘pieces’ as in chunks,” Cattleya said helpfully. “My night vision is really good.” She coughed. “Uh… but I already had that memorised.” She looked sad. “There’s not much you can do during the nights and I’ve already worked my way through most of the interesting books in the library. I really miss daytimes. I mean, we’re pale anyway, but I start burning in seconds.”  
  
“Do you even know how to use that thing?” Louise demanded of her, as there was a clattering from the adjoining room as the maid hunted for a kettle.  
  
Cattleya blushed. “No,” she admitted. “I was mostly thinking that I just hold it at the blunt end and hit people with it as hard as I can. Or possibly stab people with it.” She smiled shyly before glowering in a manner not dissimilar to a peeved kitten. “I mean, it’s really long and heavy, so even if I don’t aim well, it should still be enough to get revenge on the… the horrible person responsible for doing this to me.” Cattleya coughed. “I mean, you know evil magic, right?” she asked, hopefully. “Could you maybe – if you got a look at it, of course – work out what Louis de la Vallière did? Maybe even undo it? So I can kill him properly dead?”  
  
Ah. So it appeared that Cattleya’s motives were not entirely pure for helping her. Or maybe they were. From what she had said, Louise suspected anything you did which would kill her vampiric ancestor probably counted as a pure deed.  
  
“I can try,” she said, warily.  
  
“ _I’ll get looking in the library,_ ” Gnarl said in her ear. “ _See what might be done. That kind of magic sounds very interesting indeed, and more than a little familiar. And we don’t want someone like that getting free if you have to take the tower heart fragment. Why, he would be a rival!_ ”  
  
“You said minions?” Cattleya continued, breaking her reverie. “What kind do you have? Are they vicious? Malicious? Dreadful vile seductive demons who break all sense of what’s right and wrong?”  
  
“No, that’s my tailor. Well, her and her father,” Louise said without thinking. “Especially her father.”  
  
“Hmm,” Cattleya said, sounding peeved. “Well, you shouldn’t be associating with such sorts. There is such thing as standards.”  
  
“Fettid!” Louise called out, as an answer. “Please show yourself!”  
  
There was a blur of air, and it was suddenly revealed that he had been sitting on the mantelpiece all along. Louise felt in retrospect she probably should have noticed it, because the fire had been burning with a blue corona.  
  
A high pitched noise split the air, emerging from Cattleya as she caught sight of the minion, and it was only after a moment’s thought that Louise realised that it was not, in fact, a noise of fear. “Who’s this little lady?” the older girl said, staring at Fettid. “She’s so cute!”  
  
Louise stared askew at her sister. There were many words she would use to describe a minion, especially one of the green-skinned variety. Among them were ‘stupid’, ‘smelly’, ‘violent’, ‘malicious’… well, if she listed them all, she would be here all night. But most certainly, most concretely, in no way whatsoever at all was ‘cute’ among them. “That thing is Fettid,” she said. “It’s one of my minions.”  
  
“You mean there’s more of them? She’s so adorable! She’s even wearing one of your old dresses!”  
  
“Yes. That she is. She stole it.” Louise blinked. Why was she referring to Fettid as a ‘she’, anyway? Minions were, to the best of her knowledge, probably ‘he’, and to find out more would involve checking under the loincloth which was something that no sensible being would want to do.  
  
“Well, we have you and we have me and I have a sword and you have a horde – or so you tell me – of the cutest, most adorable minions around,” Cattleya said enthusiastically. “So... let’s be on our way to see if your magical crystal thing can be found in the tomb of the sugarhead who’s responsible for me being like this! And we can catch up more along the way... I’ve missed you so, so, _so_ much, little sister!”  
  
Louise raised her hand. “Can... can we wait until the tea arrives?” she asked, hesitantly. “I’ve been up since dawn getting here, and I think it’s catching up with me. And it was cold up on the roof and I need warming up.”  
  
“We certainly can,” Cattleya said cheerfully. “It’ll give me time to change, too. Change into something which isn’t my favourite nightgown. Not change into a bat or a wolf or a mist. Though... Louise, mind carrying a change of clothes for me just in case I do have to do that?” Cattleya threw her wardrobe wide open. “What do you think I should wear?” she asked her little sister. “You have more experience at this kind of thing?”  
  
“Uh.” Louise blinked as she leant towards the fire, warming herself. “I normally just wear my armour. I’ll change into it later... oh Founder.” She shuddered. “It’s going to be _freezing_. It’s been out in the cold all night.”  
  
“I mean, I’m a vampire hunting,” Cattleya said, “but we’re also hunting a vampire. So should I dress up like a hunting vampire or a vampire hunter?”  
  
Louise cocked her head. Two images came to mind. One involved velvet, décolleté, and general indecency. The other involved hard-faced men in leather with crossbows and stakes.  
  
“The second one,” she said as quickly as she could.


	18. Revamping the Tower 4-5

_“All right! We’ve got them pinned down inside the burning building! Which was set on fire! By us! So right now I’m going to go in there and hit them hard! In fact, I’ll hit them like the impact of the imperial knights at the battle of Wissenberg, as the man pretending to be a bishop said to the mother superior of the nunnery! And that man was me! Rrraawr!”_   
  
–  Markgraf Blitzhart von Zerbst

* * *

“You know the saying ‘I’ll just go slip into something more comfortable?’ This? This is not more comfortable!” the plaintive complaining arose over the night’s chill. Louise’s breath was steaming in the cold. Cattleya’s was not.   
  
The two sisters had slipped out of the window and made their way across the icy grounds of the de la Vallière estate, to where the minions were waiting. Small goblinoids swarmed around, putting on her armour by consensus. There was a distinct aroma of roast chicken around the place she had left them, which just made Louise hungry. She really should tell them off for stealing chickens, but frankly she had more important things to worry about at the moment.  
  
“This is the opposite of comfortable! I can feel the cold metal through my padding! And I’m just glad that there’s padding... well, I’m always glad, because I’m sure it would rub me raw if there wasn’t, but now I’m doubly-glad because this? This is freezing!”  
  
“Poor you,” Cattleya said sympathetically, watching as the minions helped fasten up the buckles and straps on their mistress’ plate armour. Louise’s older sister was wearing a long hunting coat which had been passed down from their mother, fastened up tight, as well as a broad-brimmed hat which had to be twenty years out of fashion. Louise had been worried about what she was going to put on when she had vanished into her changing room, but for once her worst fears had not come to pass. Although she wasn’t quite sure where the hat was coming from. “I’d give you a hug and warm you up, but... uh, I’m about as warm as the outside air which is fine when I’m in my warm room, but isn’t so good here. Still, Anne used the spare water for a hot water bottle, so I’ll pass it to you once it’s done.”  
  
“That’s a... no, you stupid beast, put down that fireball! Put it down right now! I don’t want to be warmed up like that!” Louise drew a breath, after remonstrating with her underling. “That’d be lovely,” she said, thankfully, before narrowing her eyes. “I’m sure I remember you having warm hugs before, though.”  
  
Her older sister blushed under the light of the red moon, rising up the east. “That would... uh, be two... well, three things,” she admitted. “It took a few years for me to lose all body temperature. But after that, it was a mix of hot water bottles under my clothes and the fact I get a hot flush for a few hours after a large feeding.”  
  
“Oh,” Louise said, as her pauldrons were fastened up. Well, another childhood memory ruined. “So your lovely warm hugs were...”  
  
“... built on hidden hot water bottles and cow’s blood, yes,” Cattleya said. “I hadn’t even had a mouthful from Anne before you interrupted, so it’s gone by now. It’s a shame. I was looking forwards to that for days. I daren’t do it when mother or father are in the house.”  
  
“Well, that explains how no one else could be the same,” Louise said wearily, ignoring her sister’s haemophagia. “It was... ow, drat you! Watch my hair!”  
  
“Oooh, mistress is gonna get you in so much trouble later,” one of the reds said, nudging the unfortunate blue who had got a lock in a clasp. “Helmet, mistress?”  
  
Louise coughed. “I’ll... I’ll just hold it for a while,” she said, gathering up the piece of cold metal. “I... I don’t want anything to obstruct my vision or hearing while we’re trying to avoid the guards.”  
  
“Oooh!” Cattleya said excitedly. “I could knit you a little hoody to wear under it. And it would be all snug and keep your ears warm.”  
  
“That’d be nice,” Louise said, gritting her teeth as she, clanking somewhat, worked her arms. “Loosen the left pauldron,” she commanded. “I can’t move my arm properly and... tighten it a bit... okay.” She bent down and picked up her staff. “Right!”  
  
Cattleya cracked her knuckles. “Right! Or was I meant to say left? I don’t know... you’re the one with the experience at this whole ‘evil menace’ thing. It’s awfully fun, isn’t it!”  
  
Louise shot a dirty glare at her sister, and then felt slightly guilty about it. Cattleya didn’t seem to get out of the house much. She always had been nicer than Eleanore, but Louise did have to admit she was rather childish; probably because she hadn’t been able to go to the Academy because she was i... was a vampire. And she had a nice warm hunting jacket on, not cold metal armour. She probably was enjoying just getting out of the house.  
  
“First thing we do is we make our way – silently – to the secret garden,” Louise said. She crossed her arms and stared at her minions. “Let me make this entirely clear. There will be no looting, no pillaging, no accidental breakages, or anything else which shows any signs we were there. Anyone who does that will be tortured to death, brought back, tortured to death again, brought back again and...” she took a breath, “... will have all their loot taken from them. And the loot will be destroyed so don’t even _think_ of pinning the blame on someone else so you can get their loot!”  
  
There was a squeak from Cattleya. “You’ve got _cold_ , little sister,” she whispered.  
  
Louise looked momentarily confused – well of course she was cold, couldn’t her sister feel the weather? - and then shrugged. “Catt, they’re minions. Violence is the only language they understand.” She paused. “Well, obviously not the only language, but it’s the one they speak the best. Pass me the hot water bottle, you stupid things.”  
  
“How can you do that?” Cattleya demanded.  
  
“Oh no,” Maggat interjected loyally, “overlady is right. We minions. We understand violence real good. Threats are real good for inn-centi-vicing us. Better that way. When a minion try understanding com-ple-cated words, we end up with Maxy, and no one want another Maxy.”  
  
“Urgh.”  
  
“Dead right.”  
  
“We have po-et-ry every day if that happen. More than we can face.”  
  
“In fact,” Maggat continued, sucking up for all it was worth, “overlady a very good overlady. She not sit back in tower and laugh; she come with us and start with the fire and the lightning. It wonder to us all. And she wonderful moe-tea-vay-shun-al speaker. She understand balance of threats and rewards and she not some bloody vampire who drain us dry and not have us bought back.” The minion blinked and remembered what he was talking to. “Naturally I clear you uh... very nice vampire who not kill me in any way at all and who even if kill me make sure I can be bought back and so that be the end of that.”  
  
"Yes, Catt, that. Look," said Louise, glowing with pride at the approval of her underlings, "they don't think of death like we do. Most of them would rather face death than poetry. I mean," she added to general shuddering, “just ask them if they would prefer to be tortured to death or made to listen to all of _Le Morte d’Brimir_ in the traditional long form.”  
  
“Death is but a sleep,” Igni contributed. “It only last a short while before someone kick you in ribs and tell you to wake up, you lazy sod. Poetry can last for hours.”  
  
“I do the kicking!” Scyl said cheerfully.  
  
“Well,” Cattleya said dubiously. “I mean, if they’re happy with it... but it all seems rather strange!” Cattleya paused and she looked at her now-armoured little sister. “And… Louise! You’re adorable! So spikey, in a cute way! And your tailor is wonderful; that surcoat makes you look like you have curves! I wonder if I can get them to make some things like that for me, because they have to be really good to do that!” The older girl paused. “Which is of course perfectly natural because you’re still growing and Eleanore was the same and I’m afraid I think it’s the vampirism which gives me this figure. Which is bad of course, because it’s a curse.”  
  
“Let’s just make our way to the secret garden,” Louise said firmly.

* * *

The enlarged group’s passage through the de la Vallière estate was considerably easier than Louise’s way in. Some of the reason for that was that they were not going near the house, which was where the majority of the patrols were, but it was more likely that the real reason was that it was getting late and it was bleedin’ cold out here and knowing that the master and mistress were away, the guards were mostly in bed or in other warm out of the way niches.  
  
The clouds were parting and the light of the blue moon joined its red sibling in the sky, casting the frost-covered garden in two shades and painting each shadow twice on the sparkling lawns. The dark lady, the vampiress and the horde of malevolent goblins tiptoed their way to the side of the lake, to the waiting boat.  
  
Which was not there.  
  
“Oh... darn,” said Cattleya, staring out across the water at the boats pulled up onto the shore on the island. “Sugar, sugar, sugar. What’s that doing over there? Well, I can’t help. It’s flowing water. I can’t even turn into a bat and fly across. I hope you’ve learned some kind of dark and forbidden magic which could pull the boat back, Louise, because... what are you doing?”  
  
“Blues, go swim over and pull the boats back,” Louise said, a little smugly as she gestured with her gauntleted hands.  
  
“This is serious!” Cattleya said, one hand going to her mouth. “The boat shouldn’t be over there! Only mother and father go over there for when they have to check on... on him, and the boat is only there because the wards zap anyone who tries to levitate over! And there should only be one boat! What’s going on?”  
  
Louise glanced at her sister, concerned. “When was the last time mother or father checked on the... the vampire person?” she asked. “How long could there have been other people over there?”  
  
Cattleya looked uneasy. “Mother has been... distracted since you disappeared,” she said awkwardly. “And then there’s been the political mess with the arrest of the princess, and the peace treaty with the Albionese Republic – she was livid about that, but father said it made strategic sense, because the Germanians were still furious about the whole fiasco with the princess – and then the death of the comte de Mott. She loathed the man, you know? She very nearly smirked when she heard he was dead.”  
  
She licked her lips. “But yes. Mother has been... mopey since then. When she’s not been in the capital, because she’s been summoned there several times. Which means that when she’s been around, she’s been staying around the house getting on the staff’s backs and making them clean everything and she started a redecoration of the gardens on the north side and got rid of the old obsidian altar and generally she’s been shouting at people. Father has been out hunting more, too... I think to get away from Mother. It hasn’t been fun to be in the house since last spring.”  
  
Over from the lake, the distant sound of “Swim harder! We do what overlady says, even if current fights us!” could be heard. As well as “Oooh! Fishie! Here fishie fishie lunchie fishie!” And “You stupid! This dinner, not lunchie!”.  
  
“Well, they’re having fun,” Louise said flatly. “This’ll probably take a while.”  
  
“Why are you so calm?” Cattleya hissed – and it was a proper hiss – at Louise. The older girl blanched, the dull red glow which had flared to life in her eyes disappearing again. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she said hurriedly, “that really wasn’t me. I’m just so... so dratted nervous. And...”  
  
“Catt,” Louise said, “... listen. Are... are you sure you want to be doing this? You can go home back to your room and not have to do all this. I’ll be fine; I’m actually a fair mage nowadays now that I’ve found some spells which come naturally to me, and I have a horde of evil, foul-smelling minions who’re probably raring to... to steal Louis de la Vallière’s cape or something. And...” she paused, not quite sure how to say it. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her sister now that she’d found she was a blood sucking fiend who sometimes – like just then – seemed to have a predatory side which she’d never seen before...  
  
... wait, she’d sort of lost where she was going with that sentence, because as it stood it was a pretty good example of why she shouldn’t trust Cattleya around her. But it was Cattleya! Her sister! Her kind, sweet sister who... who always had advice for her and hugged her and kept her safe and... and... and was a vampire, yes, but she was trying to be a good one, and was innocent and... well, innocent-ish, even if she was sometimes naughty and drank the blood of the living and... uh. Um.  
  
“I don’t want you to have to face some of the things I might have to do,” she said, trying to avoid explaining all that out loud.   
  
Cattleya grinned bravely, showing just a hint of fang. “That’s adorable, little sister!” she said, with a slight wobble in her voice. “But really, I _want_ to do this. I’m helping you not only for you, but for me. I want to see that... that utterly, utterly _horrid_ man torn to pieces and killed and never ever ever ever coming back! I want to see him dead for the way he went for me when I was ten and left me... me like this! I’d really like to make him suffer for completely and utterly ruining my life, but above all, he has to be dead!”  
  
Louise took a step back. “Catt, the sword!” she said nervously. It was making whistling noises as her sister waved it around in her agitation. She quietly filed this under the growing list of reasons she had avoided mentioning, but didn’t say anything about it. It clearly meant a lot to Cattleya. Although... “Catt?”  
  
“Mmm?” her sister said through clenched teeth.  
  
“Uh... how do you feel about fire? I mean, you are a vampire and...”  
  
“I really don’t like it. At all. It’s horrible,” Cattleya said, clenching her jaw. “When I was eleven, I leant too close to a candle flame and melted off half my face. It took me almost three cows worth of blood to teach myself to heal. Do you have any idea how hard that is? When I was alive, my body would just scab over naturally and then heal. Father had to give me anatomy lessons before I could do that. Which admittedly did help with the whole ‘aging’ thing, but still! Fire bad!”  
  
“It’s just I use a lot of it and...”  
  
“Louise, you’re not talking me out of this and that’s final,” her older sister said, in a tone which both of them would normally have more associated with their mother. She emphasised it by crossing her arms under her breasts, and trying to look stern. It was ruined somewhat by the peculiar blend of ineffectual softness, blood-hungry predator and mindless fear at the thought of fire which flickered across her face,  
  
“Oh, fine,” Louise said, slumping down and checking on the blues, who were by now rowing back. “But... oh, look on the bright side. He’s a vampire too, so he should be extra flammable.”  
  
“That is a cheerful thought,” Cattleya agreed. “Uh. I won’t be able to help with the rowing, you know. I won’t be able to move at all when we get over the water. It’s almost as bad as me and lemons. And don’t let me fall in. Really, really don’t. I’ll dissolve like a sugar lump.”  
  
“I have all these strong minions to help,” Louise said smugly.  
  
The rather overpacked boats were loaded and slipped silently into the water, pulled by blues swimming alongside. The silence was only broken by the splash of oars and of course the customary babble of minions.  
  
“Now, last time we went on boat, I got shut up,” Maxy began, “so I continue from where I get cut off. Ahem. ‘From hornies, that plague like this!/ Why look you so?’ – With my musket/ I shot the... ow!”  
  
Maggat thumped him again. “Row, row, row the boat,” he sung, joined by the others, “Her ner ner ner ner!”  
  
“Oh, for Founder’s sake,” Louise sighed.  
  
“If you see a river dragon, kill it stone cold dead!”  
  
“You too, Catt?”

* * *

The tomb of Louis de la Vallière was a pale, beautiful shape in the night. Up close, it was made of a fine white marble which almost resembled ice in its sheen and translucency. There were carvings and gargoyles and the like, which were exquisitely crafted and – now Louise got a better look at them – not something she really wanted to see up close. The recurring theme of ‘ _un homme empallé sur un pic_ ’ with subnotes of slaughters of innocents, pillage, terror, fear, panic, and manifest unpleasantness made her rather happy she hadn’t eaten anything recently.  
  
“Can you see any signs of place we need to go?” she asked her sister.  
  
“Probably down that staircase,” Cattleya said, pointing through the half-open door. “I’m not sure how far down it goes; I’ve never been here before, but father said that there’s rather more underground here than there looks to be.”  
  
“Just wonderful,” Louise sighed. “No, of course it would be too much to expect that his tomb might be nice and simply inside a small chapel.” It was slightly hypocritical of her to complain about extensive underground complexes, she momentarily considered, but it wasn’t at all the same. She wasn’t a vampire who’d gone for a ten year old girl. Quickly, she cast a lesser version of her fireball spell; enough for a thin wisp of pink flame to appear on top of her staff. “I’m sorry Catt,” she said to her sister, who had retreated almost all the way back to the boats, “but I need to be able to see here. You can stay here if you...”  
  
“It’s fine,” Cattleya said. “Just... warn me when you cast fire spells. You... you do have it under control, yes? Yes, it’s under control. I don’t need to worry about it. You’re my sister. I can trust you with fire. You can control it. I don’t need to run away or turn into a bat or wolf or mist to keep away. It’s just my sister.”  
  
Now Louise was feeling vaguely guilty. “You can go first,” she said. “You’ll see better than me, and I promise… wait, you don’t have something vampirey happen if you’re hit with lightning? Like, by accident?”  
  
“I don’t think so,” Cattleya said dubiously. “I mean, it’d probably hurt. Possibly quite a lot.”  
  
“I will try not to hit you,” Louise said reassuringly. Or at least what she hoped was reassuring. From behind her, she heard Maggat cough, and turning she noticed him lifting the scrumpled up ‘loot-sack’. “Minions,” she said, “I want everything of value from this place. He doesn’t _deserve_ a pretty resting place after what he did to my sister.” She was rewarded with a sunny, fanged grin from her sister.  
  
Stone grated and something shifted in the earth below, releasing a dry, musty smell. A flock of bats came pouring out of the tomb, seemingly from the walls themselves. Louise flinched and covered her face, but they seemed to avoid her. Cattleya merely leaned out of the way of their flight, one hand darting out to grab a single one by the ankles.   
  
“Look,” she said once the flight had passed, stroking its back carefully. “Look at this.” She offered the bat for Louise to see, fingers professionally locking its jaw in place. “The eyes.”  
  
“They’re glowing red.”  
  
“Yes.” Cattleya squared her jaw. “That means they’ve been drinking vampire blood. Or more likely they’ve had it fed to them.”  
  
“That doesn’t make sense,” Louise said, frowning. She glanced back over the water. “How could they fly over that.”  
  
“Because they’re not vampires. They’ve just been drinking the blood, without dying,” Cattleya said. “They haven’t been drained. But it makes them easy to control, obedient, allows the vampire to see through their eyes if they focus – like a mage with a familiar, really. In fact, that’s basically what it does. It turns them into fake familiars for the vampire.”  
  
“So… he knows we’re coming?” Louise asked, with a sinking feeling in her heart.  
  
“Not necessarily,” Cattleya said. “You need to focus to see this way; it’s not something you know all the time.” She paused. “At least according to the books Father had me read,” she added hastily.  
  
“It’s a good thing you know these things,” Louise agreed. “Forewarned is forearmed, yes. And,” she added, towards her minions, “that does _not_ mean anyone has four arms. And you can’t get extra arms by giving warning of things. Do I make myself clear?”  
  
Together, the two sisters and the minions entered the tomb, descending a spiral stone staircase which led down into the bowels of the earth. Louise tried her best to damp the sound of her footsteps – oh yes, her helmet had warmed up since she put the hot water bottle in it, she should probably put it on – and not feel jealous about how quietly Cattleya was moving. Outside the tiny ball of pink light which surrounded her, she could only track her sister by the faint red glow of her eyes. Which meant that often she simply couldn’t see her at all as she picked her way through dusty hallways of lavish marble.  
  
She was also having problems seeing the minions, but she could still sense where they were. Some of it was probably because of some mystical power of the gauntlet which let her track her followers, but in all honesty it was more due to the fact things were being smashed wherever they went. A constant stream of gold, silver, gemstones-from-the-eyes-of-statues and other such minor fripperies was being presented to her, to be absorbed by the gauntlet and transferred to her treasury.  
  
It was probably wrong that she was mentally occupying herself by trying to convert the value of the objects into improvements to her tower, but it occupied the time when Cattleya told her to stay where she was while she looked ahead.  
  
“ _My lady,_ ” Gnarl whispered to her, his voice wheedling, “ _I have found something most ingenious and cunning. As you know, I have been looking into the means by which Scarron was bound, and I am sure I have found something of use in our current situation._ ”  
  
Louise wasn’t so sure she had known that, actually. “Go on,” she muttered cautiously, keeping one eye open for Cattleya. She was her sister, her kind, beloved sister, but she was also a half-undead thrall-vampire thing whose eyes were glowing a faint red in the darkness. And… uh, had been for all the time she’d known her. But this was different! Now she knew, and now Cattleya’s eyes were glowing!  
  
The fact that Louise’s own eyes were glowing a pinkish-yellow was not something which she cared to think about at the moment.  
  
She heard Gnarl clear his throat. “ _Blood of his blood. Scarron is bound by his descendent, conceived using one of the two weighty jewels in which he had invested much of his power. The same applies to the Bloody Duke. You are his descendent, and you master the tower heart, a fraction of which keeps him trapped. Blood controls blood; it is one of the most basic bits of magic there is. Well, Evil magic at least, but that’s what you’re wicked at. I do believe it would be possible to twist the binding your parents imposed on him, and enslave him to protect and serve you, and act in your best interests. Oh, it would please me greatly to see a vampire grovelling before me! I spent eighty years up in that cage!_ ”  
  
“I see,” the girl breathed. “So… he would serve me?”  
  
“ _Oh, indeed, indeed. You could probably have him licking your boots, if you felt that way inclined. And the floors. Which given your obsession with cleanliness in the tower, would be a saving indeed and would reduce the number of maid outfits we have to procure for chosen minions._ ”  
  
Any further discussion was interrupted by Cattleya’s return, looking somewhat disturbed. Her expression was strained, and one eye was twitching. “You know how we were expecting traps?” she said, uneasily.  
  
“No,” Louise said.  
  
“Oh, you have to have traps! They’re in all proper tombs. But how there haven’t been any yet? Well. Uh. I found one and it had already been triggered. By someone who hadn’t left it. Um… when I lifted the stone block off, he was fairly dead and very flat. I… I think he was a peasant from the way he was dressed, but… um. It was hard to tell!”  
  
Louise licked her lips nervously. Somehow Cattleya’s explanation made matters worse than seeing it. “How… how long had he been in there?”  
  
“At least a week; the blood was dry,” Cattleya said confidently, her lips parting in a half-smile. “But not too long, because he was still a bit squishy. Well, certainly, the legs poking out from under the block were. The bit under the block was more… flat. But a few weeks would match up with the people who had fallen down the spikey pit, and I had to rescue a few of your adorable little minions from a bit of floor which tilted and threw them down onto a pile of bodies about that old. Peasants mostly, but one down on the spikes had a wand so I think they were a minor member of the nobility.”  
  
The overlady stared at her sister, eyes burning under her helmet. “I thought you said there hadn’t been any traps!” she said, her voice rising in pitch.  
  
“Oh, that? Well, yes, there haven’t been any worth paying attention to. I mean, I just broke the mechanisms to make them safe.” Cattleya coughed in a slightly embarrassed manner. “There were a lot of books on deathtraps and the like in the family library,” she explained, with a slight twitch.  
  
“I’ve been walking over deathtraps?” Louise said, sounding horrified.  
  
“I made them safe!”  
  
“… once this is over, you and I will need to talk,” Louise sighed. “Let’s just keep moving. From now on, you _tell_ me where I might be in danger from traps.” She paused, looking around the dark hallway. “And you probably should tell the minions too,” she added. “So it’ll at least be their fault if they set off a trap and I can have them punished for it.”  
  
“It’s not only that,” Cattleya said.  
  
Louise’s hands tightened around her staff, the flame on top flaring brighter and making Cattleya flinch. “What now?” she asked.  
  
“I looked far enough ahead to find the main chamber,” her sister said. “It’s a big hollow cave-place with lots of bats there. There’s a smaller tomb in there… his one. And… there are other vampires. Commoners, mostly. He’s not alone. I… I think we now know why the boats were there. And…” her hand lashed out serpent-quick to seize Louise’s wrist, holding her staff-hand in a steely grip which made the plate protest under the force, “… he wants to see you. I’m so sorry, Louise! I… can’t say no. To him. He… he told me to tell you…” a drop of blood trickled out of her left nostril, “… that… th-that the only way to stop me taking you to him is to kill me, so you won’t do anything with those ‘useful little servants’ of yours! And… and I don’t want to but… I can’t help myself! He... he makes me do things! And he’s been calling all his blood to him!”  
  
Cattleya’s lips moved in a silent “help”.


	19. Revamping the Tower 4-6

_“Your Grace, I believe I have found the artefact you commissioned me to seek out. It was located in an ancient ruin in Romalia, in mountains infested with orcs, goblins and worse things besides. Still, with the application of sufficient golems, we managed to extract it, and are currently smuggling it north. With this in mind, I might hopefully request that upon delivery you will graciously hold up to your end of our agreement and release my children in the state we agreed: unharmed, still alive, untraumatised, uncoerced, without dark magics placed upon them and released in a way which does not put them in short or medium term danger. I would, with the greatest of respect, also ask that you recall your promise and that you will and have not taken any actions to endanger them in the past or in the future. Please don’t drop them off a cliff onto spikes and say that you released them and that you did not harm them, like you did my wife.”_  
  
–  Found amongst blood-splattered papers in the de la Vallière library

* * *

Cattleya’s grip was an iron vice around her forearm and heart.  
  
Well, the heart bit wasn’t literal. Her sister merely metaphorically had her heart in a claw-like hand, nails digging into the very core of her as if they were steel talons tearing open veins and rending arteries. But it certainly felt that way.  
  
Cattleya. She was being controlled and... maybe had been all along. Louise couldn’t trust her own sister. It was all wrong.  
  
“Hey! What you…” Maggat got as far as saying, before an open-palmed slap from Cattleya tore his head from his shoulders. There were a few more screams and protests, cut short, and Louise felt every death of her minions as a tiny pulse in her head. Then Cattleya was moving, throwing her little sister over her shoulder like a rag doll in a surge of movement which showed no care whatsoever for the fact that Louise was clad in full plate armour.  
  
All the ultimate lady of malevolent darkness could do was to try to tuck her legs in and avoid throwing up as she was carried off to only Founder knew where.  
  
Hmm. Founder. Yes. That was a good idea. Louise started praying. Sure, she was technically a malevolent blight on the land, but it was in a good way! She was only doing it to restore the natural God-given order of things that put the blessed royalty on top! And Henrietta certainly hadn’t fallen to Evil, which was the only circumstance where one was permitted to overthrow a ruling monarch – and only then to put a non-wicked blood relative on the throne! And though adultery was a sin, any small mistake that Henrietta might have made was far, far outweighed by the actions of the comte de Mott in that regard. _And_ of the treacherous dog Wardes and the Madam de Montespan, that bi-... female dog.  
  
So surely the Lord would listen to her prayer, because she wasn’t _bad_.  
  
Please. God. Save Cattleya. And her too. That would also be nice.  
  
But there was no blinding light in the darkness, no forthcoming redemption. All there was for her was the rush through corridors and hallways as black as pitch, the air chilly, with the only sound in the air Cattleya’s apologies and occasional ‘mind your head’.  
  
“ _A most cunning ploy, your evilness,_ ” Gnarl said in her mind. “ _Trick him into revealing the enthrallment, and then let her carry you to him. It’ll be much faster, and if you set alight to her now, you wouldn’t be able to get past the traps. Genius._ ”  
  
Traces of light beyond that from her eyes began to creep into her blurred surroundings, but above all the thing that told her that she was no longer in cramped corridors was the change in the sound. There was a hushed susurration which reminded her of cathedrals above all, the feeling and sound of a large space with people in it being very quiet.  
  
Kind of... very quiet for people. The kind of quiet that even precluded breathing.  
  
And then she was down onto the floor in a clatter of armour, and almost as quickly being pulled into a kneeling position by unyielding muscles. In the end of the complicated movement, she was upright, but her arms were behind her back in a position which could easily become painful.  
  
There were other figures around her, in the shifting light of the magically glowing crystals positioned strategically around this... it looked somewhat like a cathedral, as she had suspected, but she had never seen a cathedral made out of this kind of dark stone. And she could see that the other figures around her, always standing just at the edge of pools of light as if they had been carefully positioned like manikins, all had glowing red eyes.  
  
Though of course it was still Cattleya who was holding her in position. Even the apologies had stopped. Her anger was slowly and steadily burning away any shock or fear in her heart. How dare he? How _dare_ he?  
  
The central vault was far larger than it had any right to be. Through her shock, Louise couldn’t see how it was meant to fit under this smallish island. So either it was under the lake entirely – and she didn’t think Cattleya had taken her that deep – or it wasn’t _exactly_ in the real world. She was inclined towards the latter, if only because the walls were lined with basalt and she vaguely recalled from geology lessons that the estate was built on granite.  
  
And her gauntlet was pulsing. Oh yes. It was pulsing like a heartbeat; a warm reminder of why she was here.  
  
“Ah, great-great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter,” a surprisingly pleasant and – dare she say it? – cheerful voice said. “So nice to see you in the flesh. I knew you’d come; you’re very attached to your arm, aren’t you? Ah ha.”

* * *

Pale blue light flared in the darkness of the tomb. “You was a gonner there, Maggat,” Scyl said, conversationally. “And you was nearly a double gonner. Your head rolled off down stairs, and I go, ‘where is Maggat’s head gone’ and then Stink over there say ‘oh look, he double-dead, baggsies on his loot’ and then he help himself to your skull arm guards while you dead.” The blue-skinned minion grinned maliciously. “He over there, in case you want to get them back,” he added.  
  
Pulling himself to his feet, Maggat worked his shoulders and glared over at the newer brown-skinned minion, who was turning decidedly beige. Stink began to unfasten the purloined equipment, but he was not quite fast enough to avoid having his neck broken by an irate Maggat, who was of the general opinion that what came around went around, often to someone else.  
  
“No one touch my stuff unless I double-dead for sure,” he growled, straining as he decapitated the dead minion and tossed the head to Scyl before recovering his possessions. “Give him a hurty neck when you bring him back, yeah?”  
  
“That pretty hilarious, Maggat,” Maxy said idly, eying up an expensive statue and the gems embedded in its eyes. “Silly, silly newbies. They not quite get how stuff works. Stupid ex-gobbos who not have to work together like we do last time we end up near vampire. Now, what we going to do?”  
  
Maggat finished strapping on the equipment. “Maxy,” he said, “when we get back, you got my full okay-ness to tie Stink down and tell him poetry ‘bout… daffo-dils or singing birdies or something. Thanks to the overlady, I pick up what special word ‘insubordination’ mean because she use it a lot and let me tell you this, I not like it one bit when it done at me.”  
  
There was muttering from the other minions. The disproportionate level of punishment seemed to be stirring some hearts. Any muttering, however, was silenced when Igni ignited two fireballs and Fettid – still clad in a dress – produced a pair of cleavers from somewhere.  
  
“Minionies who gets uppity when overlady in trouble might just have accident where I accidentally cut them into lots and lots of little bits and then throw the bits in the river so when the blues goes looking for them some of them might have been eaten and they’ll be missing something forever,” Fettid said in a sing-song voice.  
  
“Right,” Maggat said through gritted teeth, “I angry. I very, very angry. And neck still hurty. Vampire-sister of overlady in for whole lotta pain. But she also very fast very powerful vampire who take overlady, so we needs a plan because we gotta have overlady back safe.”  
  
“Yeah, we gotta,” Maxy agreed. “If she die by accident, we probably end up with Bloody Duke, vampire who overlady-sister mention in charge of us ‘cause I hear some _preeeetty_ bad-for-us stories ‘bout him. And we just get away from eighty years of bloody vampires. I sure as blazes not going back.”  
  
“But we need plan,” Maggat insisted.  
  
“Oooh! Idea!” Igni contributed. “Blazes! We set vampies on fire! They weak against it. Simples.”  
  
There was general agreement that this was a good plan.  
  
“What other weaknesses they have?” Maggat asked, pacing up and down, dragging his knuckles on the ground. “We have garlic? Steaks? No, raw steakies has blood in them, so make them better then. Oooh, we still got some silver in the loot sack we not give to overlady yet.”  
  
“I think vampies got another weakness,” Maxy said, “from what I read. It sort of a met-a-weakness, which we use to kill ‘em and not have all our blood taken which would hurt and might leave us double dead.”  
  
“It not natural, a minion who read,” someone muttered. “Who you think you are, Gnarl?”  
  
“Shut it, Bob,” Maxy snapped. “You so stupid, you try to put out a fire with a torch because you hear phrase ‘fight fire with fire’ and you dumb as person who not speak so you not understand that it a meta-four-or-figure-of-speech. You so damn stupid, you not get that minions meant to serve overlord – or overlady – and smashy stuff and heads and if you too stupid, you stop it happen then. No, what I read in book on how to kill vampires when we trying to work out how to escape bloody vampire is that they all very melo-drama-tic what is a word which means they like to show off and they not act like minions. Like, what we do if we have prisoner tied up?”  
  
There was a murmur of general discussion as the question was debated. A couple of brief scuffles broke out, before ceasing abruptly at Maggat’s glare. “Bash ‘em over head and bring life force to overlady,” someone ventured, after a minute.  
  
“Yep!” Maxy said cheerfully. “That because we best at what we do! We kill stuff good. Also stuff bad and stuff kinda mixed. But vampire, they like to go ‘mwha ha ha, I so evil’ and that have place, but vampire do it way more than even most tasteless of overlords. Overlords, they get that once you beat enemy in duel, you kills them. Vampires don’t. So what I thinks, it likely that vampire tie down overlady and go ‘mwha ha ha, this my evil plan’ and then it likely to do something to show off. So I reckons she safe for moment, and we not need to go rushing in until we got all the silver decorations off the wall and can sharpens them and ties them to weapons and stuff like that. An’ if our greenies can find a way into where overlady get taken, we can stabby-stab the vampire guardies sneaky-like and then we not double-die in horrific pain.”  
  
Maggat folded his arms. “That actually pretty good idea, ‘specially cause it involve more looting,” he said. “Next time, I not hit you so hard when you start poetry when you not allowed to. We is going to get her back,” the senior brown minion said, through gritted teeth, “or my name not Maggat Thwacker.”

* * *

Louise looked up, staring at the dramatic pool of light which had just appeared before her. In it there was a man, in a propped upright marble coffin. Pointed teeth smiled at her from an honest, trustworthy smile; red eyes gleamed from under brows which were worryingly similar to her father’s. His hair was swept back into a widow’s peak, and a long mantle was pinned over the top of clean, but out of date dress.  
  
And protruding from his chest, stabbed through the heart was a pale-blue crystal. It seemed wreathed in red light, though something in Louise’s mind told her that was just a minor madness, some extra sense detecting the raw evil pouring off the fragment of the tower heart.  
  
Clearly that was because of the presence of the vampire and his dark magics, because she never normally felt that from the mostly-intact heart.  
  
“Good evening... no, I do believe it is morning... to you,” he said, staring down at her. “I would come to see you more closely, but at the moment, I am... aha... a trifle inconvenienced. Though you could come over to me, instead. Don’t you have a kiss for your dear old grandfather?” He paused. “No? Pity. Still, it’s nice to have family around, wouldn’t you say? Do you mind if I call you ‘granddaughter’? It’s much easier all around if we don’t have to say all those ‘greats’. Very time wasting. But you can call me by all the greats. Because you know. That’s what I am. Really, really great.”  
  
Louise tried to squirm, and failed. “Let her go!” she insisted.  
  
“Ah ha. It is ironic, don’t you think? You want me to let her go, so she’ll let you go. But you know; the correct thing to do would be to obey one’s elders and ancestors, and I am both.” He smiled. “Cattleya is just being a good little girl, unlike your very naughty father. You like being a good little girl, don’t you?”  
  
“I do,” her sister said from behind her, squeezing tighter around the plate.  
  
“See! She doesn’t want to be let go. I think what we both have to consider is who is acting in her best interests here.” The duke dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “It’s me. Not you.”  
  
The overlady stopped struggling then, not breathing for a moment. She let out the air in her lungs in an explosive exhalation. “Let go of my sister. And give me back the bit of my tower heart,” she growled.  
  
“Tssk,tssk, tssk. There you go again, trying to override your sister’ s feelings. You can’t control her her entire life, you know.” The man paused. “Well, her entire unlife. Because, well, you know. Although she’s not quite as utterly amazing at everything as me, she’s still better than you. It’s a vampire thing. Get it?”  
  
Louise was of the opinion that she really wanted him to get ‘it’. Where ‘it’ was ‘set on fire’.  
  
“But no, seriously? You want this crystal thing sticking out of my chest?” the vampire continued. “Take it. You’re welcome to it. Feel free. In fact, given you are a dark lady, if you’re open to an alliance, I’ll let you take your sister with you as a mark of our cooperation.” He grinned. “I promise I won’t have her murder you in your sleep or stab you in the back. That’d be just terrible.”  
  
Louise blinked. Huh? Was he just... offering her an alliance and then saying he’d let Cattleya go freely with her. If she’d just take out the fragment of the tower heart... which was what she wanted to do anyway?  
  
Wait, was everything going hazy and fuzzy? Yes, it was.  
  
She did believe she was having a flashback.  
  
“Louise,” her father had said, looking serious. “When you get older, men might want you to... do things. Especially a certain kind of man. See, you’ll be able to tell, because he’ll want you to come closer and he’ll say he wants you to remove something from him. He’ll say it’s a magic crystal and nothing bad can happen if you help him, but he’s lying.”  
  
She had looked up at her father, wide-eyed. She really wanted to get back to playing with her dollies, especially the brave mage-knight her mother had got her, but her father had said that now she had a marriage arranged, there were important things she needed to do.  
  
“It might sound like it couldn’t hurt, or it’d be a good thing to do,” he had continued. “Don’t listen to men like that. They’re a bad, bad men, and if you touch him, very very bad things will happen. Listen to me, Louise. This is vitally important, and you’ll need to remember this, even if you are just six.”  
  
Louise blinked again, and she was back in her own normal-sized body. It was... rather less comfortable, all in all, because of the whole kneeling-with-her-arm-held-behind-her-back-by-her-vampire-sister-thing. Yep, that had certainly been a flashback. And... oooh. Was _that_ what her father had been talking about? It all made much more sense.  
  
“Uh,” she said out loud, playing for time. “So... you mean you’ll let me go...”  
  
“ _Alive, unharmed, uninfluenced by vampire magic, and without any other negative status effects or other such things,_ ” Gnarl prompted.  
  
“Alive and unharmed. And without any magic on me or things like that. And you’ll let me take Cattleya and you promise not to control her anymore.”  
  
“Yep!”  
  
Cattleya’s grip on her arms loosened, and she managed to stand, rubbing her wrists. She took a step forward. “Okay. Alright. Okay.” Louise took a deep breath. “But wh-what… um… well, hypothetically. What would you do if… if you were on fire!” The last words were shouted as she threw her hand out and silently thanked all that was holy that she’d spent that money over the last few months on books that taught how to cast the fire spell without chanting.  
  
Admittedly, she had to be channelling the right ‘dark emotions’ to do it according to the book, but frankly that was a load of hogwash because she’d never had any problems doing it when she’d been practicing on the jester.  
  
But as it stood, she hated her blood-sucking ancestor more than she’d hated anyone in the world before. Apart from... no, even including her treacherous dog of an ex-fiancé. And, my, were the fires burning bright, a pyre centred on the stone where the Bloody Duke had been staked. All around her vampires were screaming and recoiling, and Cattleya certainly had let go of her. Stomach muscles screaming, Louise very nearly managed to flip onto her feet, and only stumbled a little bit, plate clanking.  
  
“Oh, you wicked little girl,” she distinctly heard the Bloody Duke say from inside the pillar of flame. “So much hate! So much raw malignancy that you can casually throw off a dark spell like that.” He sounded as if he was _smiling_. “You are a _treat_. And you did it right in the middle of conversation! How adorable! But can you put the fire out, so we can keep on talking? I can’t see you when the fire’s in the way.”  
  
Louise jabbed a finger at the pillar of flame, fresh pink flames already leaping to life on her palm. “That... that’s not possible!”  
  
“Look, if a ten-a-denier fire mage could have killed me like this, do you really think the first von Zerbst to try to kill me would have been failed, instead of being displayed in every town square in my lands?” Louis said cheerfully. “And let me tell you this, the family’s been slack and let some lands escape, because I had to slice him pretty finely to allow each town square to have a slice. I stitched protective amulets against fire into my appendix _before_ I became a vampire, because humans are pretty vulnerable to it too.”  
  
Louise let the fire die down, and picked up her staff from where she had dropped it, igniting the end with a muttered chant. “Gnarl,” she muttered.  
  
“ _Why, this is a vampire lord, who’s staked into immobility, but is immune to damage,_ ” Gnarl said thoughtfully. “ _He will almost certainly have lesser vampires attack you, possibly while hurling dark spells at you, while you have to look for his weak point. That’s how this kind of thing goes. And, your evilness, you did not believe that the comte de Mott would have a weak spot, and yet he did! My expertise on these things is unparalleled!_ ”  
  
Louise considered this advice. Well, she could try kneeing her ancestor in the groin. He was male, so it might work as well as it had on the comte de Mott. But wait, no; that flashback to her father’s advice had said she wasn’t meant to touch him.  
  
Almost casually, she threw a ball of fire at a vampire dressed like a member of the lower nobility, who ran off screaming, igniting the dark hallway. She could fight off vampires for a while. Yes, that made sense. She could find his weakspot later – indeed, she already had suspicions - when she didn’t have to watch her back for lesser vampires and her minions might have shown up.  
  
But for now, they should keep away from her fire, and she could work out a way to free Cattleya and kill the other vampires. Yes. That made sense, she thought, as she threw a few more balls of fire into the panicking and scattering undead. This would have been so much harder if she hadn’t learned all these fire spells and...  
  
“Oh, you’re being tedious,” the Bloody Duke said, not a hair out of place. “Those of you too stupid to get out of the way of my granddaughter, burn for my amusement. Cattleya. Kill her. Also for my amusement. ”

* * *

The Countess Marie de la Tolou was not actually a countess, nor was she actually from Tolou, but the weak human cattle were impressed by such things and so she had used that name for almost a decade. Who cared that she had been a butcher’s daughter before she had been turned into a vampire by a handsome young man?  
  
But then she had felt a calling in her blood, and so she had summoned her thralls – including her dreadful father who had never shown her the respect she had deserved – and they had conveyed her onto this place in the de la Vallière estate. Some of them had died to the traps and others to her hunger, but she had still waited here under the dreadful gaze of her ultimate father-in-darkness.  
  
And now there was some relative of the Duke who was throwing around scary pink fire, so she had deliberately and cautiously withdrawn out of the way of the burning which had already consumed no small number of the other bloodsuckers. Which was a good thing, because clearly she would be a more valued servant when all the other ones were dead. She might even end up a real duchess. And a necessary part of this was keeping out of the way of a fight.  
  
Thus she did not exactly expect a foul-smelling goblinoid armed with a sharpened silver candlestick to drop in from the ceiling and start beating her skull in with the blessed metal.  
  
Maggat cracked his knuckles as the corpse disintegrated into silvery ashes, breathing heavily. “I feel bit less angry,” he observed. “But only little bit. Lots more anger left for vampy smashing.”  
  
“Told you there’d be tunnels or shafts for lettin’ fresh air in,” Scyl said, poking his head down from the ceiling. “How else would all the vampies breathe?”  
  
Maxy dropped down too. “That... very good question,” he said. “Oh look. I was right, boss vampy is making overlady fight sister in drama-tick fight to death for funnies.” He nudged Maggat. “Get it? It joke because ‘tick’ is blood-sucking para-site. Like vampy. Ow,” he added, rubbing his head.  
  
“We burn vampy now?” Igni asked, dropping down and nearly dropping the pistol he was carrying. Silver wire which had once formed an intricate decoration was sticking out of its barrel, and he was just raring to see what would happen.  
  
“Nah,” Maggat whispered. “Look. They all watching overlady and vampy sister. Greens, go kill vamps who is not being careful. And do it silent-like. We gots to be ready for when overlady want us, but double-dead vamps is always helping her, yes?”  
  
Unseen, silver-wielding blurs in the air fanned out and started with the bludgeoning.

* * *

Louise could hear Cattleya’s pant as she slowly moved into position, hear the grinding of her teeth. That was reassuring. Her sister was fighting it. Not very reassuring, of course, because she was still hefting that monstrous sword in both hands and Louise had seen too well how fast that thing could be swung around, but it was at least something.  
  
“I am going to kill you!” Louise shrieked at her many-great grandfather. “You... you wicked, wicked swine! Call her off! I am going to make you suffer! For a long, long time!”  
  
“Heard that before,” the duke said with a yawn. “Just take the crystal and everything will be fine.” He shrugged. “It’s not like you can win either way, in case you’re planning some stupidly Heroic move where you let her kill you to ensure I stay trapped. Though I very much doubt that kind of idiocy occurred to someone as Evil as you.”  
  
Louise had to admit that it hadn’t. Mostly because that would involve her dying, not that dog who she would see dead and buried before she even thought of giving up.  
  
“I’m really, really sorry, Louise,” Cattleya called out from the darkness. “I do really want to kill you though, but I don’t want to want to kill you, so sorry!” Her sister kept on calling out apologies from beyond her vision, and Louise tried to repress a smile. Maybe... maybe Cattleya was fighting it the best she could. This way she could hear her. She began to chant again, following the sound of her sister, and lightning crackled on top of her staff, painfully bright compared to the pink of her flame.  
  
Listening as best she could, Louise aimed, and prayed that it would work like she hoped. A thundercrack sounded in the underground cavern and Cattleya was sent flying back, tumbling over and over, before she flipped to her feet and vanished up into the ceiling with an inhuman leap. However, rather more importantly, the sword went flying, clattering off, and there was a distinctive ‘twoing’ that suggested it was stuck in a wall somewhere.  
  
“Let go of my sister!” she shouted, the ball of fire in her hand flaring brighter in her rage. “Gnarl! Tell me how to take him down!” Cattleya was scared of the fire, keeping away, so she was safe for the moment.  
  
“ _You need to weaken him before we can carry out the ritual to bind him,_ ” the elderly minion said, yawning. “ _He’ll need to be vulnerable first._ ”  
  
“That’s no help at all!” Louise hissed under her breath. “I have a plan, but I need more than that!”  
  
“Shh, Cattleya,” Louis commanded. “Stop being such a blabber mouth. Now, Louise, see,” the vampire said, flashing a sharp grin, “I do believe I win either way. You see, if she kills you, that’ll be the blood of a blood relative split upon unhallowed ground thrice bound and I can break this imprisonment put upon me by your rather annoying father. And he went and made it so the relative had to be alive and untainted by vampirism, too, which was particularly annoying. So much talent, so much potential, such a natural gift for blood magic... and then he just downright refuses to practice it! Honestly! I went to all the trouble of arranging for his parents to meet, and he wastes the effort I put into it!”  
  
“I won’t give you that satisfaction!” Louise snapped, holding her burning palms aloft. She knew that Cattleya knew that she had to keep concentrating to keep the magic working. “I am going to gut you and... and tear out those amulets and then cook you over a slow fire!”  
  
There was a wrenching noise in the darkness, the sound of stone crumbling and being torn. Louise cause a glimpse of something white and dodged. She was barely fast enough; Cattleya had thrown a statue at her. It whistled past her ear and broke against the far wall.  
  
“That’s the spirit,” her ancestor told her. “You’re showing precisely what I’ve been breeding for! A wonderful talent for dark magic! The sadism! The rage! The fact that you’re already wearing a demon-forged suit of armour, carrying a gauntlet that even I’ve only ever seen before in books, and commanding a loyal horde of minions – true, purebred minions – well, granddaughter, Cattleya says you’re only sixteen, but I’d say you’re a prodigy! I’m even more of a success than I thought I was!  
  
“Your eldest sister was a disappointment, and Cattleya was convenient and slept with her window open. I had thought it would be most amusing to target you, because it would have been hilarious – much as it always is – to force your wretchedly Good parents to deal with a vampiric six year old... vampires that young always end up really, really funny to watch, because they never learn to control their instincts. And there’s a fresh taste to the blood of those so young. But I’m glad I didn’t, because you’re much more fun now! All you need to do is take your crystal from me, and I can guide you so we can take control of the country which should have been mine by right! Tristain for the de la Vallières!”  
  
Panting, straining to keep the fire alight, Louise nevertheless shivered as her blood ran cold. She had lived for so long for praise from her parents, but to get it from this ancestor? When he had been planning to do... what he had done to Cattleya... to her? She... it had so nearly been her. The only reason she was alive right now was that she had taken the chill easily as a child and slept with her windows closed in even the hottest weather.  
  
That was utterly terrifying.  
  
“So that’s what you want?” Louise asked, trying to keep him talking. Cattleya didn’t attack her when he was talking, so he was probably instructing her to keep back while he monologued. “Controlling the country.”  
  
“Naturally,” the vampire said casually. “At least as a first step, before we seize back the empire from the various curs who stole it from us! I was my father’s oldest son; just because he wasn’t married to my mother, he gets to fob me off with a dukedom rather than the crown which should have been mine? Not on my watch! It’s what I’ve been looking for. And right now, the throne is weak and the queen has no heir. Grandaughter, there are fewer than ten people between you and the throne! I’ve spent over a hundred years making sure the family marries people with royal blood, picking the right wives and husbands, marrying extra children into other lines and then marrying them back. Honestly, don’t people think about the meanings of words? What is a king, but a lord over lords? And,” and the smile grew even wider, “true power rests in the blood.”  
  
“You’re utterly insane!” Louise snapped.  
  
“No, no, no, no, no!” her ancestor snapped. “That’s a _Hero_ thing to say! Bad girl!”  
  
There was a crack of air and something hit her in the breastplate, knocking the air from her lungs. Something went crunch, and Louise had a horrifying suspicion that it was one of her ribs. And now she was flat on her back. The fire was still burning though, and clutching her staff she pulled herself to her feet, sending her sister hissing back. Her free hand went to her chest; there was a fist-sized dimple over her heart where the plate was bent in. The padding had taken what it could of the blow, but... Founder, had she been shot?  
  
No. That had just been a punch from Cattleya.  
  
“Your dreadful parents have been a Good influence on you to say that kind of thing!” he continued. “You should be saying things like ‘Why should I share power with you?’ and ‘You fool! What can you possibly offer me!’. That’s a sensible thing to say! It shows proper ambition! And I can explain why!”  
  
“ _Don’t listen to him!_ ” Gnarl snapped. “ _I’m your advisor, not him! You can’t trust a vampire lord like that, my lady! He’ll just make you into an enthralled pawn!_ ”  
  
“You fool,” Louise said, trying not to sound in pain. She could hear her chest crackle when she breathed. “What can you possibly offer me.” She paused and added, trying to keep the wheedling note out of her voice, “After all, you’re a vampire. Surely you can’t have been smart enough to... to stop all your weaknesses even... um, if you don’t catch fire.”  
  
She’d just caught, at the edge of her vision, something which looked distinctly like a vampire being mobbed by a group of foul-smelling goblins. Which meant she just had to buy more time. And maybe deal with Cattleya... she bought her staff around in a warding arc of fire and her sister retreated, hissing. Cattleya hadn’t said a thing since the Duke had made her be silent. Which made things horribly easier in some ways.  
  
Vampire weaknesses, vampire weaknesses. Which... uh, didn’t kill them. And didn’t require things like garlic or lemons or witchroot which she didn’t have on her. But she needed to think quickly. Because she was getting tired and her will was sapping and if she didn’t think of something quickly, she would need to kill or be killed. And she really, really didn’t want to do that.  
  
She caught a blur of motion out of the corner of her eye and flinched. It was enough for Cattleya’s open-handed slap to hit her arm. The plate rung like a bell, which was hurt a lot when one was wearing it. The pain forced the breath from her lungs and made her scream from the pain in her ribs. Reflexively she swing her flame-tipped staff towards her sister. With a shriek, the vampire retreated, and Louise was left alone again.  
  
It hurt a lot. Really, a lot. Her arm didn’t feel broken, but she was going to have the mother of all bruises there tomorrow morning and really, really hopefully she’d live that long. She waggled her fingers. And then waggled them again.  
  
She let the fire go out. “Okay, great-times-something grandfather,” she declared. “Let’s hear your offer, then. I get to keep Cattleya, right?”  
  
Her sister, eyes glowing dull red, fingers twisted into claws was suddenly in front of her, between her and the Duke. Her coat had been split open by her movement, revealing that Cattleya had only thrown the outer garment over the top of her night dress – which did explain how she had changed so quickly. Streaks of red marked their way down from her sister’s eyes; she had been crying blood. The look in her eyes, past the glow was raw pain.  
  
“What are you up to?” the elder vampire asked suspiciously, from behind the protective shield of her sister. “I expected far more banter and demonstrations of my fabulous sense of humour before you started to see the dark.” The man pursed his lips, thinking, and then chuckled delightedly. “Aha! You wanted to expose her so you could kill her yourself! Sororicide for preservation and prospects! Why, I killed my half-sister myself, back when I was a mere boy. Feel free! Cattleya is a lot less fun than I thought she would be, honestly. Too much of your blessed parents in her, I’m afraid. It’s very disappointing. Your great-great grandmother took to vampirism like a bat to blood, but your sister’s just... _weak_. I’ll even tell her to stand still!”  
  
Louise threw her hand out and Cattleya hissed, recoiling already from the fire. What hit her, however, was not burning pink. No, what hit her was gold and silver.  
  
“Why are you throwing coins at me, Louise?” Cattleya asked, from the edge of the light.  
  
In response, Louise scattered another handful. And another. “How many are there, Cattleya?” she shouted back. More and more handfuls got thrown down, some of them behind her. “They’re just sitting around the place, looking messy! And you hate messiness, right? How many, Catt?”  
  
Cattleya blinked, eyes suddenly no longer glowing. “I... one, two, three, four...”  
  
Louise scattered a handful right on top of the lot her sister was staring at. “You missed some!”  
  
“That’s mean! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven...”  
  
And that was about as far as she got before Louise hit her around the jaw with the unlit end of her staff, as hard as she could. “Sorry!” she apologised as Cattleya doubled up in pain, bringing her armoured knee into contact with her sister’s face. “Don’t take it personally!”  
  
“’At’s o-ay,” Cattleya managed, dribbling blood. No one who just got kneed in the face should look that grateful. “I ‘an regro’ ‘eeth. On’, ‘oo, ‘ee,’or... ah. Ah. Ah.”  
  
Louise hit her again in the face with her staff with all her strength despite the pain, and bone cracked. “Tell me if you don’t think you can heal it!” she yelled as she stomped on one of her sister’s clawed hands. “Just keep on counting! It’s not your fault that you’re having to count all these things; that’s just a vampire thing, right?” She drove her staff into her sister’s midsection. “Keep that in mind! You’re just being a vampire, you’re not fighting his control at all! He made you one so that’s what he wants...” she grunted as she kicked her, “... you to do!”  
  
“’At’s ‘igh’,” Cattleya managed, not even moving to defend herself. “I’n ‘ryin’ ‘o ‘ill ‘er, ‘ran’ather, but ‘ampire stu’...” Another staff blow to her already-battered face knocked out one of her elongated canines. “On’, ‘oo, ‘ee...”  
  
Trying to resist the guilt of her battered sister, Louise straightened out and poured out more and money on top of her, drawing it from her treasury through the Gauntlet until Cattleya was almost buried under coins. That should keep her busy, even if her sister managed to heal. She turned around, and let out a pained exhalation, her dented armour protesting. Despite all that, despite how hard that had been, she still... wanted to smirk. Just a little bit. For managing to find a way to incapacitate her sister without vio... without anyone dying.  
  
Her sister was out of the way. Her vampiric ancestor was there, face twisted in a pout, lit from below by the blue glow of the tower heart. Soon, she promised herself. Very soon.  
  
“Your move, grandfather,” she said, sweetly, igniting the fire again. “And minions, I do believe I’m having all the burny fun. You like jokes, grandfather? Reds! Open fire!”


	20. Revamping the Tower 4-7

_“Oh, what are you making such a fuss about? It was only a few bathworths of peasants a year, and they replace themselves so quickly! They weren’t even workers – I made sure to pick from the ones who were good for little else. Honestly, all the things I had to endure, raising you! Why couldn’t you be more like your brother and sister? You were always an ungrateful little brat and when you ran off to the Manticore Knights to tramp around being publically Good I nearly died of shame. It’s that dreadful wife of yours, who parades around in mens’ clothing who put you up to his, isn’t it? I never thought even you’d lock me up in a monastery! Well, so be it! Taste a mother’s curse!”_   
  
–  Madeline de la Vallière (née Ambracia)

* * *

The smoke-filled tomb was ablaze with screaming vampires. And it was just as well that it was made of stone, or it would also have been ablaze with fire. And a burning roof is an unpleasant end to a night’s entertainment, at least when one is inside.  
  
A vampire ran past the red-skinned minion’s firing line. They did not technically have to set it on fire again, because that had already been done, but they still threw a few more fireballs in its general direction because vampires burned in an amusing way.  
  
“You know,” one of the red-skinned minions said, casually, “is we hurtin’ cause of Evil with this? ‘Cause there not be many vampys left ‘round abouts in morning?”  
  
“That hard to say,” another one said, staring at the pink explosions on the other side of the hall which marked Louise indulging herself. “Vampys are Evil, but they is not us. Also, they is rude and kicks us.”  
  
“Oh, that mean killin’ them is proper Evil,” the first one said. “I just want them to burny less bright. We no is getting loots from them ‘cause their clothies is catching on fire. Only the stuff in their their wallets. We see what they gots in their pocketes, but mostly that is ash. And the shinies go to overlady. I is feelin’ a little cheated by this, you know what I is saying?”   
  
The other minions looked at him with incredulity, or at least would have done so if they had known what the word meant. “No,” was the answer he got, explained as if to an idiot. “Because we is setting stuff on fire that burn nicely.”  
  
“Oh yeah.” A pause. “Want to set Cheem’s ears on fire?”  
  
“He red like us. He no burn.”

* * *

Louise stared at her ancestor, pinned in his coffin by the fragment of the tower heart. What flesh was exposed from under her helmet was locked into a rictus of hatred.  
  
Her ancestor stared back at her. “Okay,” the man admitted, inclining his head, “you really are a wicked little girl. How many of those blasted little goblins do you have?”  
  
“Enough,” Louise said flatly, tilting her head back so she could look down her nose at him. “I am going to make you suffer. Although I don’t think I can do one tenth of what you have c-coming to you, you... you dastard!”  
  
“Oh no. Oh no. Whatever will I do. Incidentally, learn to swear properly, granddaughter; you sound like a baby. Here; I’ll give you something to swear about. I suppose now is the time that I reveal that I’ve been saving Cattleya’s lifeblood for ten years within my veins for just this moment?” he said, with a sudden smirk as he looked up, a sudden bloody aura igniting around him.   
  
“Oh yes. You see, I had expected that my descendents might try to bind me – as I had after all been breeding you for mastery of the black arts which includes blood magic – and so by keeping her blood and breath... yes, I learned how to steal that while in Rub al Khali on my way to the Mystic East... trapped, I can weaken the binding whenever I want to. There is a certain magical artefact which I found long ago which allows me to do all kinds of interesting things with life force. Sadly the blood is stale, so I can’t break your father’s trap – and I had to spend no small amount of it to resist his compulsion which would have kept me sleeping, but...” his face twisted into sudden monstrosity, “... it should be enough.”  
  
The crimson glow intensified, forming six monstrous, spider-like limbs which dug into the ground. Pulsing like a heartbeat, he lifted himself upright, the coffin hanging from mid-air in the centre of a bloody nimbus. Strange, child-sized spectres floated around him, drawn from the ground below him into his growing aura.  
  
“Oh yes,” he continued. “I suppose I’ll just have to shed your blood myself. And did I mention I didn’t have _anywhere_ near all my spawn in here. Your pathetic goblins are surrounded and outnumbered by the vampiric master race! Trust me on this.” He grinned a needle-toothed grin. “This’ll hurt you more than it hurts me. Ah ha.”  
  
“ _I expected something like this,_ ” Gnarl said calmly. “ _Do not die, my lady._ ”  
  
Louise screamed and ran away, as a blood-red glowing tendril whipped down towards her, splintering the granite floor and leaving it splattered with spectral gore.

* * *

“Uh,” said Scyl, eyes wide. “This bad, right? The fact that vampy-grampy has evil glowing red tentacles an’ is chasin’ overlady and killing stoopid noobie minions who are chargin’ it straight on? This not part of secret plan I no pay attention to?”  
  
Maxy sighed. “Yeah. This real bad. And not the kind of bad we like, where we say ‘oh, this is totally bad’ and overlady get confused because she use Good language because of how she was bought up. We is more screwed that a screw that’s gone screwy ‘bout being screwed into something.”  
  
“This not something we can defeat,” Fettid said, sadly. “Vampy-grampy not got feet on the tentacles.”  
  
Igni crossed his arms and pouted. “Stupid vampy! Bein’ immune to fire is cheatin’.”  
  
There was a pause.   
  
“Well,” Maggat said. “Time we go lay down our lives for overlady, right? However many times it takes. Scyl, don’t get killed.”  
  
“We is going to have such a rezzing headache in the morning,” said Maxy, morosely.

* * *

All in all, Louise had but one opinion of this current chain of events.  
  
It was, as Cattleya would have put it, complete and utter bull-sugar.  
  
“Argh argh argh _oh Founder drat it all_ why is this happening _what kind of vampire can do this_ argh duck duck duck _what did I do to deserve this?!_ ”   
  
“Why, you rejected my perfectly reasonable offer!” Louis de la Vallière called out from behind her, over the noise of shattering stone from the dreadful spider-scuttle of his red-glowing tendrils. Lousie threw herself to the left, ribs protesting at the motion, and gave silent thanks to the various enchantments Jessica had woven into her heels which meant she could actually run in them.  
  
“Slow him down!” she shrieked in a generally minionly direction, and legged it. She certainly wasn’t running away; she was just getting out of stone-breaking blood-tentacle reach of her vampiric relative who was specifically looking to kill her to unleash a great evil on the world. Which all in all was clearly the morally righteous thing to do, as well as being considerably better for her health. Behind her, she heard the gleeful cheer of minions who had been told to kill something, followed by various unpleasant organic noises and screams.  
  
Jinking around one of the high stone columns, the girl gasped for breath. She licked her lips, desperately trying to wet her mouth. It was bone dry. Okay, she wouldn’t be able to pronounce the lightning chant properly in this state. Which meant that she would have to see if she could at least... like, blind him with fire or something, because that way she could at least run away more when he couldn’t see her. And fire crackled and stuff like that, so... so maybe he couldn’t hear her! And it had a smell too!  
  
Holding her free hand to her ribs, she ducked out from behind the cover of the pillar and levelled her staff one-handedly at her ancestor’s head. In horror, she watched as he picked up a minion with two tendrils and wrung it out, squeezing it so the blood ran out over his face. Long months of practice with any magic she could get her hands on had paid off, and bolt after bolt of pink fire lashed out fuelled by hatred and, yes, fear.   
  
Only to be absorbed by the crimson aura which enveloped the vampire. She poured in shot after shot, but with none getting through. The redness flared and surged to absorb each impact, getting brighter and brighter until, like shattering glass, one of the extra limbs fractured.  
  
Louise ducked back behind the pillar, panting. She could feel a headache coming on, and her limbs felt like jelly. What with everything else that had occurred, her will was almost sapped. By a gut feeling, she had about enough left in her to do that once or twice more. And that wouldn’t be enough, even if the vampire didn’t have some cheating stupid blatantly unfair ability to repair them.  
  
Maybe, just maybe, she was seeing why even her parents had only been able to bind him.  
  
The pulsing on her arm from her gauntlet grew stronger, and she realised she had not been paying attention. She risked a little poke of her head around the corner, and shrieked as a red blast of light tore into the marble, cast by a too-close ancestor smeared in minion blood. The monster was even using one magical limb to wipe himself clean and feast upon the blood – his arms remained locked immobile. Or possibly he hadn’t spared the blood to allow them to move.  
  
Wait! He said he was using up the blood of Cattleya he had saved. Maybe if she kept on running, he’d run out of it and she could get him when he was paralysed again! Keep on running, drag things out, blow off more aura-limbs if she could because that might hurt him or hasten his demise. She took a deep breath, ignoring the protest of her chest, and poked her head out, ducking back in as quickly as possible. He was distracted by her red-skinned minions, who were killing the lesser vampires with hurled fireballs, but very soon he would have killed them all. She needed to act quickly, take advantage of this, and take him down now.  
  
“Reds!” she ordered into her gauntlet. “Keep moving! Keep away from him, and scatter into smaller groups so he can’t take you out all at once! Browns! Protect the reds and throw things at him! Blues, split up so there’s two of you with each group! Make sure none of you die! Greens, get up high! Attack the roof supports above him! If you can drop rocks on him, you might be able to pin him! If that doesn’t work, drop down and attack his limbs from behind, and then run away if he tries to pull you off! And the nearest group of minions should come to me! Everyone, focus on the limbs! If he gets close, run away! Keep him moving and distracted!”  
  
She could do it! That was a good plan!

* * *

That had been a terrible plan, all things considered, Louise thought as she sailed backwards through the air. No, wait! Her plan had been fine! The problem was with her opponent! What kind of cheating vampire ignored the minions who were being nice distractions and charged straight for you as soon as he noticed you? And didn’t care when you blew off two of his evil blood tentacle things if it meant he got close to you, rather than retreating like all the monsters in the stories did after being injured? That wasn’t how this sort of thing was meant to work.  
  
Then she hit the wall and her world – which had already been made of not-inconsiderable amounts of pain – was now made of agony. She could describe how she had sounded like a sack full of cutlery dropped from a height, or the fact that she was sure she had heard multiple bones snap, but really, it hurt too much for that kind of abstract thought.  
  
Through the red and black haze, she could see her ancestor stalking up to her, his face leering down at her from within his coffin suspended from the tendrils. “Old age and treachery triumphs over youth and skill,” he said, casually. “Except you weren’t actually that skilled. Honestly, I was the skilled one, and you were the treacherous one for opposing me like that. Wait a moment. Let me think up some better last words to be the last thing you hear as a living being.”  
  
Louise groaned. Each breath felt like knives into her lungs, and her breath was coming in bubbling gasps.  
  
“Ah yes! I’d like to thank my fans, for their _undying_ support, and extend my best wishes to the people of Tristain, who’ll be seeing my come-back tour very soon!” A pause. “No, not, not ironic enough. Hmm. I’ll enjoy drinking deeply from your defeated and despondent despair? Eh, no. Let’s see…”  
  
There was the patter of feet at the edge of her hearing. Or possibly that was the pounding of her heart, beating like a butterfly’s wings as it pumped out her lifeblood. She felt like she was drowning.  
  
“Ah! Don’t think of it as dying. Think of it as leaving early, to avoid the...”  
  
“Right! Stick him in the melodrama!” someone yelled, a muffled voice from the edge of her hearing.  
  
“Fire in the hole what is left by the thing what I am shooting at you!” yelled Igni, and fired his pistol at the Duke’s face. Given it had been loaded by the mechanism of ‘ramming bits of silver down the barrel’, and its firing mechanism was a minionlock – more colloquially called ‘Igni had his thumb on the pan’ – it was a hazard to at least one person within 360 degrees of the weapon’s opening. And in this case, the unfortunate someone happened to be the Duke de la Vallière (undeceased), who took a barrel’s worth of tight-packed deniers to the knee.  
  
He went over backwards in a clattering of his stone coffin, his bloody tendrils disintegrating, howling in pain. Louise laughed, a bubbling gasp that left her mouth splattered with her own blood.  
  
“Don’t move, overlady,” she heard, over the fog of the pain. “Maxy, get the arms!” She would have shouted something at the minion who said something so utterly stupid, but she was in rather too much pain for such things and her breath just didn’t seem to want to obey her. Ha. Ha ha ha. Clearly... clearly she should shout at it. Shout at her breath.   
  
Ha. God, it hurt so much.  
  
“Let go! What I ever do to you?”  
  
“Fettid, got the knife? Good? That very stupid question, Bob. You gotta know I not forgive. And you too annoying to forget. On count of ‘Cut’, do it Fettid! One, two, five...”  
  
“Three.”  
  
“... shuddit, Maxy, I very distracted right now. Three, cut!”  
  
It was like soothing balm in her veins. It was not like the healing sensation of water magic; it felt better than that. It wasn’t cold and didn’t make her feel slightly sick. No, it felt like... living. Louise refocused her eyes and gasped, her breath coming cleanly and pain-free. Before her stood a cluster of shamelessly gore-covered minions and the slowly disintegrating corpse of another, dissolving into a pool of sticky black slime.  
  
“What did you do?” she breathed, eyes wide.  
  
“We explain later,” Maxy said casually. “Vampy grampy biggest problem right now.”  
  
“I thought biggest problem was way roof is getting damaged,” Scyl noted. “It bigger than he is, an’ I no can bring minions back if they have become like... what the word? Food stuff. Rat-au-vin, that was it.”  
  
“I think now not time for bickering because vampy grampy is a little distracted but Igni not have any shots left so we need to run,” Maggat said, cutting off any other debate with the threat of violence. “Try not to get splatted again overlady. It bad for your health.”  
  
No. Louise levered herself to her feet, wiping her mouth on her arm and thanking that she’d somehow managed to keep a hold on her staff. She spat blood out, onto the ground. No. No more running. No more hiding. She stared with abject, ice-cold fury down at her fallen ancestor, who was drawing in child-like spectres of red light from the ground itself, regrowing his blood-tendrils and beginning to pick himself upright.  
  
“You still really rather hurt, overlady,” Maggat cautioned. “You lot? Know another minion who annoy us and need using as health maker better for overlady?”  
  
“I no like Monger,” Igni contributed, tongue sticking out as he tried to frantically reload his pistol.  
  
Louise spat again, to clean her mouth, and began to chant. Lightning crackled from her staff, from her gauntlet and from her armour. It earthed itself on the ground around her. The minions around her shaded their eyes from the burning brightness in the dark. So did the Bloody Duke who loomed over her in his spider-walking coffin, one leg a bloody mess.   
  
And then she raised her left hand and shot him in the centre of the chest with a lightning bolt. The actinic blue light flared against the crystal in his chest, crackling and flaring. And then the red aura spiralled and churned, drawn in an inexorable vortex into the crystal and snuffed out as the energy flowed back into her gauntlet.   
  
The coffin crashed down to the ground with a splintering sound.  
  
The overlady stared at her hand with an expression of mild shock. She had been waiting all along to have a chance to aim for the obvious glowing crystal linked to her tower heart mounted in the middle of his chest which was tied into his binding, but... uh. Well, she hadn’t expected it to do that.  
  
The duke screamed in agony. There were words of some sort in there, possibly involving ‘cheating’ in some capacity, but they were rendered unintelligible by pain and fury. Already, a new red aura was springing to life around him, though, as the spectral child-sized figures flocked toward him.  
  
“I told you! I told you that was my magical glowy crystal! And lightning is wind magic, not fire!” Louise shrieked in triumph. “Gnarl! Have you got the ritual ready! You better! Or I will cook him alive with my lightning! Cook him dead! Undead! Whatever!”  
  
Someone groaned from behind her, and from under a pile of money – which was not there any more – Cattleya pulled herself to her feet. Louise glared at the minions who had been busy collecting it again, and waggled her fingers in the right way, filling her hand with more coins. “Stay down, Catt,” she said, trying not to wince at the sight of her sister’s face. She’d managed to fix most of her teeth, but she wasn’t looking very pretty. And Louise had been the one to do it to her... in self-defence, yes, but still...  
  
“Not... he’s... too distracted. Hit him again. M-make him scream,” Cattleya managed, drooling blood and swaying.  
  
Louise did so, with pleasure, dispersing the red light forming around him which had begun to build up again with another blast of lightning. “How do you like _that_ , you dog!” she crowed. “Oh, you thought you were so powerful? Not anymore! Ah ha ha ha!” She started coughing, as the laughter hurt her ribs. “Scream!”  
  
“Than’ you.” Cattleya stared down at her armoured sister through a swelling black eye. “Out o’ my way.”   
  
Louise blinked. “What?” she asked. But she knew all too well. There was a haggard look on her sister’s face, something hateful and bitter.   
  
“I... I _need_ this. I... I was jus’ ten. He... I can’t make it not have happened. But he has to die.”  
  
“ _If you kill him, you can’t bind him,_ ” Gnarl warned. “ _The knowledge! The abject humiliation! The humiliation of forcing him to provide the knowledge, and then possibly putting him in a cage hanging from the ceiling for a decade or so! But then again, you might come to rely on him... and then he could betray you. And I would be powerless to help if you hadn’t been listening to me properly because you had been unwise enough to rely on him rather than me. Tricky, tricky. Hmm. Well, I have the books ready for the binding whatever you decide, your evilness._ ”  
  
Standing between them, lit from behind by the red light of the Bloody Duke’s aura and the pulse of the tower heart, Louise froze.  
  
“Move,” Cattleya whispered, hands balled into fists, a fresh tooth extending from her gums like a snake’s fangs unfolding.  
  
... she shouldn’t let Cattleya do it. It was wrong. This would be her killing someone... and probably draining their blood. That was bad. It was wrong. Killing did bad things to the minds of vampires, the stories said, that they weren’t truly lost until they had first killed. She could stop her. Kill the Duke first. Rid the world of him. Or bind him, take him away from Cattleya, leave her safe with her parents. Or... she could kill them both. Put the blood-hungry, battered thing in front of her to rest, the beast with rending teeth and glowing eyes and claws, and remember her sister as she was, as she had been. As a kind, sweet girl; not something that had to prey on others. Not something which... which had ever looked like that _thing_ before her.  
  
Gnarl waited patiently.  
  
But the way Cattleya looked at her. She was still her big sister. The raw, visceral need in her eyes. The pain, the inner pain which put whatever Louise might have done to stop her attacking to shame. She knew that need, that hatred, that desperation all too well; she had seen it in the mirror when she had blamed herself for another failure at magic. It must have been horrible for her all these years. Lying to her little sister, blaming her older sister, scared of Mother and Father in a way which Louise had been this past year. And she was... technically a vampire in some ways, because it seemed that one of the things that her minions had _not_ told her was that they had a way of sacrificing themselves to heal her.  
  
If it meant that much to Cattleya, then dr... then _damn_ everything else.  
  
Louise stepped aside, bowing her head, and Cattleya sprang.  
  
Feeling sick, Louise tried her very best not to listen nor to cry. From everything. Her arm was hurting more, and every breath hurt. And she was hoping and praying that what she had done was for the best, but she didn’t know and feared to find out.   
  
Screwing her eyes shut, she turned around, and summoned a ball of fire in her hand. The next step would be to see if the thing which... to see if it was still her sister over there. But she didn’t want to look. This... this was all her fault. This was exactly what Mother had spoken of, the weakness of choosing what felt easy over what she knew to be right. So she had to face it. She had to carry out the righteous action if it was necessary. And having done that...  
  
“Uh. Louise?” Cattleya asked, curiously. “Why’re you standing there with your eyes closed? Well, I mean, you’ve got that fancy helmet on, but I can’t see your glowing eyes – oh! Your eyes are much nicer than mine, by the way; dull crimson is a horrid colour – where was I? Oh yes, I mean, what’re you doing?”  
  
That... definitely sounded like Cattleya rather than a blood-soaked queen of the damned. Louise opened her eyes, and reconsidered. How to put it? Well, Cattleya wasn’t a queen, and her dominion of the damned was uncertain. That was about what could be said.  
  
“Yeah,” Cattleya said sheepishly, a adjective not usually applied to someone who looked like they had just had an ‘accident’ in an abattoir while wearing a hockey mask and chasing a mixed group of teenage stereotypes. “We do kind of need to find some still water for me to jump in. And this nightdress is probably ruined. Well, it’d definitely ruined. I lose lots of clothes to bloodstains, but this won’t even be good as rags. You would not _believe_ how much blood he had in him! I think he was regenerating it! And it was so good. Really, really good. I’m not going to have to eat for _weeks_.” She hiccupped. “I mean, that was wonderful. Enough to heal everything you did to me – I totally forgive you for that, little sis, and am so so so sorry for what he made me do – and then more.” She put a hand on her stomach. “I feel half-ready to burst! Like a tick or something! I wonder if that’s what people mean by the sweet taste of revenge? And...”  
  
Louise raised a hand. “Catt. No more, please.” She took a deep breath. “I... I might have found out what you are and what you get up to, but... uh, can you not talk about... the whole v-word thing in such... such... I’m really not very comfortable with it!” She swallowed. “Is... he dead?”  
  
“Well, yes. He’s a vam... oh, right.” Cattleya smiled a not very pleasant smile and jabbed a finger in the direction of the coffin. “See for yourself.” Louise did so, and was presented by a shrivelled, desiccated corpse which looked like it had been dead for hundreds of years. Paper-thin skin, torn in places, was stretched tight over yellowed bone. The teeth had been smashed and broken, the limbs broken, and the corners of the mouth seemed to be locked in a rictus of agony.   
  
Louise seized the fragment of the tower heart from his chest. The crystal glowed bright in her hands, sinking into her gauntlet, and she felt a sudden almost-contented charm from the stone in the gauntlet. Then she yanked the mantle off the corpse, tossing it to Cattleya. “Put that on,” she said. “You’re... uh, sort of,” she made gestures around her chest, “... sort... the blood is making your nightie see-through and...and uh, one of the straps is broken and you’re sort of... just put it on, Catt.”   
  
And then Louise turned and set fire to the duke’s body, watching it burn. Something collapsed on the far side of the room as she did so, rubble throwing up dust which was painted pink by the fire.  
  
“I’ll just stay back here if you don’t mind,” Cattleya said nervously, edging away from the inferno.  
  
“Minions,” Louise commanded, before correcting herself, “well, reds. Collect the ash from the fire, and then we’ll sprinkle it in flowing water. Well, some of it there. Some we’ll put in a jar of holy water. And other such things. I want his ashes spread so far and wide anyone wanting to use dark magic to bring him back will have to start with fingernail-sized portions!”  
  
Maggat coughed in an embarrassed fashion. “Uh, your evilness?” he said. “We die. A lot. I mean, double-die. Well, most of the ones who die is stoopid ex-goblins who never meet a vampire before, but still.”  
  
Louise paused, and shrugged. The remaining minions did look especially well-festooned in both minionly-gear and things like opera capes and monocles and other such accruements of the pseudo-aristocratic vampire. “Oh well. We can always get some replacements for the goblin-ones.” She paused. Should she really be thinking like that? On the other hand, the ex-goblins _were_ offensively stupid and a few had even made comments about her height and lack of a bust, so really, they had it coming. “How many can you save?” she asked.  
  
Scyl stepped forward. “We got all the ones we can,” he said frankly. “Vampies eat lifey-ness, so they got ways of killing us dead-dead easy.”  
  
Oh. Well, it was the vampires’ fault, not hers. That made everything so much easier. They really were such a morally acceptable target, she thought smugly.  
  
The vampire beside her sniffed, and stared over towards the other side of the room. “Through there,” she said, pointing. “More vampires.”  
  
Louise cracked her knuckles. “Well, I suppose we – and by that I mean ‘I and my fire-throwing minions’ better go solve them,” she said, cheerfully. You can keep back...” she trailed off, at the way that Cattleya had in the blink of an eye crossed half the room. Clanking, aching she made her way over to where her sister waited, and stared in shock at what she could see.   
  
The damage to the underground chamber had smashed away a false wall which had revealed a secret room. Within could be seen... a mass of vampires, chained together. They were not the handsome, pretty vampires like the Duke de la Vallière (re-deceased) or even Cattleya; they were walking corpses, with monstrous fangs bared from lipless mouths. And what they were chained to, by red-glowing chains, was...  
  
“ _A minion hive!_ ” Gnarl exclaimed, sounding incredibly pleased with himself. “ _Not a true one, of course, but it looks like a fairly good copy. Your evilness, you must take that back to the tower at all costs! Ah ha! And that explains exactly how he was able to return from things which should have killed a normal vampire! He clearly was using it to feed off all kinds of life force! And even why your father needed a shard of a tower hear t to bind him! Well, well, well. I wonder how he got his hands on that? And from whom he got it from? And whether he was dead or not when he got it? Either way, taking it back may be the only way to ensure he remains dead!_ ”  
  
The overlady nodded. “Very well,” she said, ignoring Gnarl’s ponderings for the much more relevant ‘bring it back’, and threw a sputter of sparks. Given that had meant to be a fireball, that was a bad sign. She tried again, focussing, and got a damp belch of flame which barely made it past her finger tips. “One...small, teeny weeny problem,” Louise said uneasily, panting. “Uh. I... seem to be out. This has never happened to me before! I... I’ve never had a problem with Evil magic!”  
  
“Mmm?” Cattleya said, licking around her mouth and staring at the throats of the writhing mass of corpse-like bodies.  
  
“It’s a real problem! I’m... I’ve spent all my time learning magical things and I’m... uh, I could be better with my staff! And those vampires look really nasty.”  
  
Cattleya blinked, and grinned widely, her teeth notably lengthening and her whole face taking on an inhuman cast. “Oh, Louise,” she said teasingly, “that’s not a problem. Let me,” said Cattleya gently. “I can handle this. In the proper manner.”  
  
Louise stepped back.  
  
“Alright, you suckers!” Cattleya screamed at the top of her voice, lifting her two-handed sword high, “don’t give us any sugar, or, may the blesséd Founder aid us, we will flipping end your foul existence!”   
  
“This is your idea of a proper manner?” Louise hissed in shock.  
  
“They’re not a problem,” her sister said cheerfully. “They’re a meal. And killing them all counts as repentance for whatever bad deeds the two of us might have done tonight, right? I mean, it’d be _wrong_ for us to leave them here where they might escape.”  
  
“You said you were full!” Louise blurted out, momentarily forgetting that she didn’t want to hear that kind of thing from her sister.  
  
“So I did! Turns out I was wrong,” Cattleya said brightly, unhinging her jaw with a crackle of bone before she leapt.  
  
There was something... very wrong with her sister, Louise could not help but conclude. More so than usual. More so than she had been before. Maybe it was the fact she’d killed the one who’d made her like this and that had boosted her confidence. Maybe Mother and Father had known exactly what they were doing when they’d kept her on a animal diet and now with all this blood – not even just human blood, vampire blood – that she’d gorged on, she was like some peasant child who’d never had honey in more than small mouthfuls being sat down at a noble banquet.  
  
Louise’s minions formed up around her. She told them to hold fire – literally – and then clarified that they could still shoot guns and the like, but throwing fire at her sister was right out. She then expanded on a few threats on what would happen to anyone who disobeyed her. It was relaxing.  
  
Cattleya was a fanged whirlwind of inexpert sword blows. Then again, there was a certain school of thought which stated that a man-tall lump of sharpened steel being swung around like it was a twig by a vampire could not precisely be called an inexpert. Or a sword, exactly.  
  
Either way, things which went within reach of her got body parts removed by a blade which whistled through the air. Those were probably the lucky ones, because the ones who got within biting range suffered altogether more unpleasant fates. Louise averted her eyes, paling at the sight of her kind gentle sister shaking a woman by the throat like a dog might a bone.  
  
Either way, there was _no_ way she could let her sister near Mother in this state. She’d _have_ to take her with her. And not just because there was the nagging voice at the back of her head which sounded vaguely like Gnarl pointing out how useful that kind of loyal monster might be. Wait, not ‘not just because’. Not at all!  
  
“ _You know, your evilness,_ ” Gnarl began slyly, “ _you could..._ ”  
  
“Yes, I’m taking her with me,” Louise said sharply, with a hint of regret that the voice hadn't actually _been_ Gnarl. At least when he said horrible things, they weren't coming from her, and she could get properly outraged about them.  
  
“ _Delightfully indulgent, your evilness. Certainly, the Duke would have been a useful slave if one was being pragmatic, but you wouldn’t want to let a man like him constrain your actions. And he might have ended up a rival. A rival of you, of course. No one else._ ”  
  
“Finished!” called out Cattleya cheerfully, dropping a shrivelled husk of a vampire which began to disintegrate into dust when it hit the ground. She dug in her by-now-split-and-tattered nightgown and recovered an already-bloodstained handkerchief, before frowning at it. “Louise,” she asked. “Uh... do you have a handkerchief? Mine is dirty and I need to wipe my mouth.”  
  
The overlady passed her sister a little white frippery, and winced at the mess which was made of it. “And... Cattleya?” Louise asked nervously. “Do you have to... uh, lick the sword like that?”  
  
Her sister blushed, and hastily licked her lips. “Sorry, sorry,” she apologised, “but it’s just so nice! And I so rarely manage to get human blood. Mother and father – righteously, I might add – stop me from having it. It’s raw steak and black pudding and animals, normally. But...” she sighed happily, “... it’s so nice! No wonder most vampires are utterly horrible people! It’s like honey and poppy juice, mixed together. And this vampire blood is... Founder, it’s even better! I hadn’t even thought that was possible! Louis was _wonderful_ ; I’m not entirely sure I can go back to bland bland bland animal blood again.”  
  
“Well, I think you’ve had enough!” Louise said hotly. “And I think you’ll have to! Go back, that is!”  
  
“I know, I know,” Cattleya said sadly, before perking up. “I wonder if Mother would let me become a vampire hunter! I mean, once you get past all the horrific things happening tonight and how I was almost made to murder you – which totally wouldn’t happen with any other vampire – tonight was pretty fun. I could do this all the time, and no one minds if you drain a vampire dry. We got to spend time together, I got really good meals... so, so good... and best of all, we made the world better! It was so good!”  
  
There was a grumbling of irate noises from the minions.  
  
“Steady, steady,” Maxy said, hastily. “Remember, sister what is a vamp is like overlady and was raised by Good parents. They not know the proper meaning of words.”  
  
“Oh yeah.”  
  
“True, that.”  
  
“About that,” Louise said, ignoring the rumbling of her murderous goblinoids, “... Cattleya? Rather than asking Mother, would you like to come with me and...”  
  
She had been thinking of a sales pitch. A way of explaining it. A way to carefully persuade her sister that she should come with her, help her, and so – and this was the bit she wasn’t going to mention – be kept away from mother when she seemed to be enjoying blood rather too much.  
  
Any further attempts to carefully explain the benefits, however, were cut short when Cattleya locked her in a flying tackle and hugged her close. Louise tried very hard not to breathe, because her sister reeked of blood. She also did her best to put the state of her armour out of her mind, especially regarding how much she would need to pay Jessica to fix it again.  
  
“Of course of course of course!” the older girl said gleefully. “Of course I will help you! Louise, thanks to you that horrid, horrid man is dead and I’m free! And you’re my sister! We’re family... and not the horrific blood-drinking cruel kind of family! We can go back to my room, your minions can move that magical rock thing you found, we can pick up some stuff, and then we can go right away!”

* * *

The wardrobe had been manhandled – or rather, vampiricfemalehandled – through the window, and was making its way off the estate, carried by three minions who had been told that if they made sure it was removed safely, they would each get a dress at the end of it. So too had the bed, which had turned out to have a mattress made of soil. Now, Cattleya was finishing a letter for their parents while Louise drank a warm milk which had been prepared for her by the maid, Anne. Louise had questioned her as to whether she was surprised by Cattleya coming back covered in blood, but apparently it was just a thing that happened and the maid was now working industriously on trying to remove the stains from the nightgown.  
  
Louise felt it was futile, but the peasantry had their ways and they liked to feel busy. The fact that Fettid, still wearing one of her dresses, appeared to be helping her was... well, she wasn’t going to question things. So instead she drank her milk and listened to the scratch of her sister’s pen.   
  
“It is finished,” Cattleya said, suddenly appearing before her.   
  
Louise spluttered, and milk went up her nose as she began to cough. “Can you... not do that, please?” she asked, once she had her choking under control.  
  
“Oops?”  
  
The overlady sighed, and began to read.  
  
_Dear Mother and Father,_  
  
_By the time you read this letter I will be gone. I am writing this letter in the very best hope that you will understand what I am doing, and I hope and pray that you understand that every last word I write here is true. I will understand if you do not believe me, for I am not a trustworthy creature, but I can only hope that you will. At least this will let me get my story down, if we do not speak peacefully again._  
  
_This night, a calling I did not even know I had been feeling became too strong to resist, and I found myself drawn to the secret lake, to the tomb of Louis de la Vallière. I think he has been calling for quite some time, building in strength despite the wards and the running water which keeps him trapped. And I was not the only one who was drawn there, because the dark overlady from the north, the one who killed the comte de Mott, was also there. She was looking for the artefact of Evil you used to bind our hated ancestor, though – perhaps she had felt his lure amplified by her search for it. I do not know._  
  
_Before you worry, I have talked to her about the artefact and I believe her to be telling the truth when she says it is a fragment of an ancient thing of much malevolence called a ‘tower heart’ which must be kept whole. At some point, the tower heart was damaged, and the fragments sold off; this is bad, for damage to a tower heart can – she says – depopulate entire regions. I consider it wiser to allow a minor force of evil to exist than to risk losing perhaps the entire North, though I do not know for sure and you are of course wiser than me in such matters._  
  
_But that is a distraction. The overlady wished to see the vampire dead once she had discovered his existence, and... and I must admit I was weak. You know how much I hate what I am, that I am forced to live like this, and the chance for revenge was too much to pass up. I was prideful and foolish, though, and in my hate I ignored your warnings. He took control of me when we were in the tomb._  
  
_And this is where the terrifying thing comes in. Through some means, perhaps linked to the tower heart, the overlady had found a way to counter the immortality possessed by the Duke which exceeded even that of the normal undead. And she found a hidden artefact in the tomb which he used to anchor it, and broke his connection. Using the fragment in his chest, she drained his power, and... and she laughed and let me have my revenge on him._  
  
_I killed the Bloody Duke. Mother, father, this is the truth. I... I sunk my fangs into his neck, drained out his blood, and left him a husk drained of all blood and life. The overlady burned the body, and we scattered the ashes in the running water of the rivers._  
  
_He is dead. I am free from him._  
  
_And this is not the only other thing I must tell you. The overlady... she says she knows where Louise is, that she keeps her close at all times. She says Louise is not dead, but merely is not allowed to return home until whatever the overlady has planned comes to pass. Louise ran away from the shame of her failed summoning, trying to become an adventuring Hero as a way of proving herself, but stumbled into the tower of the overlady. She killed a vampire who had done many wicked things, but then ended up trapped. So I have gone with the overlady. I will make sure my little sister remains safe. I may be dead, but I will not allow her to die, too._  
  
_Please do not come looking for me. The dark overlady has hinted that she knows where Louise is at all times, and that if you came something terrible would happen to her. And I can feel – just feel in my heart – that she’s telling the truth. When I get to where she’s taking me, I will make sure to find out the truth. If she’s lying... well, I will try to leave, but I am sure she is not! I will do my very best to make sure that Louise comes to no harm and to work within the dark lady’s organisation in the name of righteousness and the crown!_  
  
_I will try my very hardest not to indulge in my little illness and keep it from public knowledge, like I am meant to. If I am found out despite my best efforts... well, clearly it was the dark wicked overlady who infected a poor innocent girl with this dreadful condition, and you will mourn me for who I once was. I will try my very, very best to not bring shame on the family name._  
  
_If you never see me again, I just want you to know that I love you all so very much, and that I will be eternally grateful for these past ten years of continued life, when by rights I should have been put to death years ago. And I am so dreadfully sorry for whatever grief I may bring you._  
  
_I love you all. I will always love you, no matter what. And with the grace of God, the next time I see you I will have Louise safe with me._  
  
_Your loving daughter,_  
  
_Ayelttac_  
  
Louise finished reading the letter. With mixed emotions, she put it down. Part of her knew how selfish she was being, how she was hurting her family by pretending to be dead. Oh, she’d known it before, but this brought things home to her. And now she was responsible for taking Cattleya – who was now, properly, a blood-sucking undead monster – away. She hoped her parents would never find out what she had done. And, guiltily, there was also glee, because now she’d have her big sister with her and someone to talk to and... well, a vampire would be useful in rescuing Princess Henrietta, right? She shouldn’t think of Cattleya as a useful tool, but she would be.  
  
But probably chief among the mixed emotions she was feeling was exasperation. “Cattleya,” she said, wearily, “you’ve written your name backwards.”  
  
Her big sister winced, and massaged the back of her neck. “Sorry, sorry,” she said sheepishly. She rapped on her skull with her knuckles. “Silly, silly hollow-headed me. I just do that sometimes when I get distracted. I’ll go correct it right away.” She took the letter back and scrawled out the signature, her tongue sticking out as she focussed on writing it again. “Is that better?”  
  
Louise sniffed and wiped her eyes – it was just the dust, really! – and nodded. “Yes, it is,” she said. “Now... take what you need to take, and we can go. Silently. I’ll have the minions carry your baggage.”  
  
“I need to say goodbye to my animals,” Cattleya said, nodding. “Well, most of them. I’ll be taking a few of them along, because... well, I’ll miss them too much otherwise. And... um, I might get hungry, because I don’t think you’ll have a proper set up to make sure I can eat. I’ll be taking Anne too, because you can’t expect me to go without her. I can’t even do my morning toilet without her, because... well, no reflection. She has to do my plaits.”  
  
“Fine,” Louise said, sadly, slumping down on a cushion-filled armchair. She winced at the tearing noise, as something gave way under her slightly-spiky armoured bulk. Hopefully Cattleya had not noticed.  
  
From the side room, Louise could hear the barking of hounds and the cawing of birds, as her sister’s menagerie welcomed her. “Sorry,” her sister said. “I won’t be able to feed you and you’ll have to be good. I can only take some of you.” There was a caterwauling. “No, there’s no need to be like that. You can live here fine. No... down! Down boy!”  
  
Louise smiled faintly.  
  
“No! No, Ursa, I can’t take you with me,” Cattleya said, in response to what sounded like... a roar? “You’re mother’s, after all. You’ll just have to go back to her room. She’ll notice you’re missing when she gets back.”  
  
A sad roar.  
  
“There, there. I’ll be back soon! Now, come on boys! Come with me!” The door opened again, and Louise boggled slightly.  
  
“Catt?” she said, slowly, staring at the waist-high black-furred monsters padding beside her sister. “Those are wolves.”  
  
Cattleya shook her head. “Louise, Louise, Louise. All dogs are wolves.”  
  
“... no. Catt, those are wolves. With sharp teeth and glowing red eyes and...” Louise paused. “Cattleya, why do you have vampire wolves? What did you do to those poor creatures!”  
  
“They’re not vampires!” Cattelya said, sounding offended. “And trust me, Louise, dogs and wolves are the same kind of creature! They can have adorable little puppies together!”  
  
“The details of what makes a wolf and what makes a dog different is not in question! Those are wolves! Vampire wolves!”  
  
“They are not!” Cattleya paused. “I only enthralled them! Else they were too scared of me! And that makes them all tame and playful and friendly! Anyway, one of my vampire powers is I can summon wolves, and father doesn’t mind that because he says that wolves are less dangerous than the black hounds he breeds for his hunting.” She paused. “I can also turn into one,” she added, as if this were a minor point that she had only just remembered.   
  
Louise sighed. “Fine. Perfect. Why not? So you’re taking them with us. Go ahead.”  
  
“I was thinking that your adorable cute minions could ride my puppies,” Cattleya said, pouting.  
  
There was a clatter from Fettid over by the washboard, as she dropped everything. “Overlady sister is best sister in whole world!” she said, gleefully.


	21. Another Heroic Interlude

**Another Heroic Interlude**  
  
  
Snow fell in flurries outside the window. Magelights streamed out through the frost-fern-painted windows, illuminating the snow outside in a contrast of light and shadow. Montmorency de la Montmorency looked outside in disgust, and sighed.  
  
“You know,” she said, “we're going to have to go out in that to get to the palace. And it'll be cold and wet and unpleasant. Even if we're taking a coach, it'll probably be damp and we'll get snowed on and... urgh. I hate winter. You know, down in Romalia it hardly ever snows.” She sighed again, smoothing down her long, flowing pale blue dress and picking at the lace which trimmed its bodice. “When _is_ Kirche going to be ready?”  
  
Guiche shrugged, and then checked himself in the mirror to make sure that the motion had not marred his appearance in any way. “I don't know. Something female, I think. She's not doing her hair, because I was done quarter of an hour ago. Are you _sure_ my cravat is tied properly? I'd just hate to meet the queen with it improperly done up.”  
  
There was the rasp of paper as Tabitha turned a page. Compared to the coiffed fripperies of the other two, she had put on a formal mantle, and hints suggested that she was probably wearing a dress under the long garment. Certainly, though, compared to the elaborateness of the other two, she appeared shockingly severe and plain. “Eet eez fine,” she said, simply. “Guiche, I like zis... this house. Thank your father, yes?”   
  
“Where is she?” fretted Monmon. “This... this isn't funny any more! We managed to get there just in the nick of time to save the Romalian ambassador from being replaced by that soulless duplicate made from his own blood and shadow! If we're late for being rewarded for it... if she isn't down in the next five minutes, I'm going up there! I swear, if she has a... a man in there, right now, at this time? I... I will do something which... oh. Oh my.”  
  
The 'oh' was because Kirche von Zerbst had just descended down the stairs of the Gramont townhouse. Her hair was curled and fell in long elaborate tresses over her shoulders and down her back. Lip paint had been carefully applied, her face rouged, and her eyelashes carefully darkened with soot. Her face was further framed by her high, lacy collar, which formed a running lace-filled motif throughout her dress. Her pointed jerkin was a deep red which set off her skin tone, trimmed with bronze and lace; her baggy hosiery was an immaculate black. And she set off her mode of dress with a knee-high pair of boots, soled with iron high heels.  
  
In other words, she was dressed and made-up in a blatantly masculine way. And from the creaking she made as she moved, there was elaborate corsetry under her clothing which was giving her the narrow waist, flat chest and broad shoulders of an attractive young man.  
  
“Oh my,” said Monmon again, feeling decidedly peculiar. “What... my, my. What are you wearing? And... where...” she made vague cupping motions, “... how are you shaped like that?”  
  
“Corsets. Yes, there is a reason I am dressed like this,” Kirche said breathily. “No, don't explode on me, Montmorency. Yes, it is perfectly decent to be dressed like this – otherwise it wouldn't be fine for Guiche to be wearing something similar. No, I do not have the _patience_ to explain why I am like this. Is that all right?”  
  
“Let us go,” Tabitha said, rising while still staring at her book.  
  
“But...” Guiche said dumbly, “... you're... you're dressed like a man? Why? You're being presented to the court? Shouldn't you be wearing one of those daring gowns which completely expose the décolletage? And... how are you even getting a better build than me? Who's your tailor? You're are a fair flower, in very full bloom and...”  
  
Kirche stomped over to him in her high-heeled boots, and quite deliberately ground her heel into his toe, making him yelp.  
  
“Listen, Gramont,” Kirche hissed. “Does it hurt when I stand on your toe? Does it? Does it hurt to have your flesh crushed like that? Well, I’ve got that going on around the region of my chest and I have whalebone digging into my ribs. I am not in a good mood. If you mess with me, I _will_ set you on fire. I hope I'm getting dressed up like this for no reason, but I fear I'm not. So don't ask until afterwards when I can get this off and breathe properly again. Or I will burn you.” She paused, panting. “If I have enough breath to manage the spell,” she added. “Ow, ow, ow. I think I'm going to need a new one of these made. Again. I mean, do you want to _see_ what I have under here?”   
  
Monmon slapped Guiche over the back of the head pre-emptively.   
  
“What was that for?” he protested, smoothing out his hair.  
  
“That, sweet Guiche, was in case you felt like arguing that a direct invitation to do so was in fact permission,” the girl said acidly.  
  
“But she...” he began, before yelping when she flicked him on the ear. “Women!” he said, throwing up his hands and deliberately turning his back on them.  
  
“Late,” said Tabitha, over by the door.

* * *

“... and so we would like to thank you all, especially Guiche de Gramont who has done so well to maintain the good name of his family, for your brave and heroic actions in thwarting the wiles of our enemies,” said Queen Marianne, eyes passing over the group slowly from her vantage point on her throne. Her burgundy hair was streaked with white; there were harsh lines around her eyes which were not on the older paintings. “To this end, we intend to reward you all. Guiche de Gramont and Montmorency de la Montmorency, we intend to make you both chevaliers of the realm. Your companions are not our subjects, but they too will be granted the title in honorary recognition of their actions – though neither the rights nor the obligations of a chevalier of Tristain will fall upon them.”  
  
Guiche bowed deeply, and Montmorency curtsied. “Your majesty is too kind,” the boy said. He was still shooting slightly disturbed periodic glances at Kirche, and this side of her he had never seen before, but she had only threatened him when he had tried to ask her in the coach here.  
  
“You have done a great service to the realm, by saving the Romalian ambassador,” Armand Jean du Plessis, the duc de Richelieu, said smoothly, from his wooden desk in front of the queen's throne. “His death would have been an embarrassment for our great nation. Ambassadors are sacrosanct, and so are lamentably often a target for those with malevolent intent, but this was far too close for comfort.”  
  
“In truth,” Montmorency said, “your grace, it was luck – or perhaps the will of the Lord – that we stumbled across this plot. We merely found a cryptic clue in the lair of a bandit chieftain which hinted at darker deeds, and we followed it.” She did not mention that the torn piece of paper had mentioned a payment of five thousand écu for some unspecified favour, because that was not the sort of thing one mentioned in the heroic reward ceremony.  
  
“Surely it was divine favour!” the duc stated. “Why, I have heard mention of your deeds not infrequently in the past year – starting, of course, Gramont, by the way you personally captured that horrible woman who called herself Fouquet who fortunately still rots in jail. The sheer genius of how you managed that – which of course needs no introduction to all of us – will be told in story for years hereafter!” The man's face darkened. “Of course,” he said, more seriously, “I fear that this is a time which will soon need heroes.”  
  
“Yes!” the queen interrupted, raising her voice. “This is indeed a dark time! A time where the young become disloyal! When your feckless daughter courts disaster with her wicked and sinful and ill-mannered affairs!” She peered down at the four rewardees. “I hope none of you even think of engaging in wicked and sinful behaviour with men or women!” she demanded. “Don't you dare! I forbid it!”  
  
“I assure you,” Kirche said breathily, “I do not _think_ of doing anything of that ilk with men and I certainly don't do anything with women.”  
  
The queen sniffed. “At least some people appear to have some decency,” she said. “Unlike my dreadful, dreadful daughter! Who has fallen into the wicked ways of her half-uncle, and her great aunt, and her great grandfather, and her great great grandmother, and...”  
  
The duc coughed. “Thank you, your majesty, for such instructional messages to the youth of today,” he said, smiling oilily. The man rose. “If you do not mind, your majesty,” he said, already approaching the quartet, “I have a few minor technical matters to discuss with the brave heroes, which might as well be dealt with now.”  
  
Carefully, he led them out into a lush sideroom with comfortable seats, and sat himself down, steepling his fingers before him. “Be seated,” the duc said. “Please, forgive the queen. Her nerves are... not what they used to be. Her daughter's actions have put her under great stress and worry, ever-thinking about the safety of our country. To that end, she has delegated much of the petty details of the government to us, her loyal Council of Regents, while she concentrates on the larger picture and recovers from her shaken nerves. It was unusual for her to appear like this today, but she insisted on meeting her brave heroes.”  
  
Guiche assured the man that they were suitably flattered, complimenting the queen as he did so with flower-based metaphors. “And so like the rose, her thorns ward away many threats,” he concluded.  
  
The duc de Richelieu smiled thinly. “Quite so,” he said. “I will not ask for your oaths on the state of the queen, but I do ask that you please bear in mind that we are treating her with care and we have entire monasteries hired to pray for her recovery while the Council keeps the country working. And it is of the Council I wish to speak... or rather the demise of the comte de Mott.” He coughed. “I do hope I'm not boring you,” he added, directed at Tabitha, who had not said a word and on closer inspection was reading a palm-sized book behind her hands.  
  
“No,” she said, not looking up.  
  
“On the comte de Mott... it was just dreadful!” Monmon said, her hand going to her mouth. “A wicked force of darkness struck that much-loved man down!”  
  
“Quite so, quite so.” The duc looked grim. “As master of the royal courts, it is my task to ensure that law and order is kept in force in these lands,” he said, staring at them from across his hands. “There is a dark power rising in the north, and throughout this year, since summer, it has attacked tax collectors and other symbols of government authority. I fear it is no mere greed, however; it has also raided farms, shipments of backpowder, and even things as innocent as flocks of chickens going to market.”  
  
“We've mostly been in the west since the holidays – which are the only time we can go adventuring – started,” Kirche said. “Not the north.”  
  
“Yes. It's too cold up there, with the wind coming off the Great North Sea,” Monmon agreed. “I detest Amstreldamme.”  
  
“Quite right,” the duc agreed, “but sadly Françoise Athénaïs likes that wretched swampy city and its improbable number of lightning strikes, so I must go there more than I like. But still. Evil breeds Evil,” he said, “and one overlord – or overlady, as the case might be – means more emerge. I cannot tolerate such things! We must bring down the iron fist of the state upon them! Crush all rebellions! Kill all necromancers, vampires, orcs, goblins, heretics, Protestants and other such disgusting things which take the rise of Evil as a sign to come out the woodwork. Our allies in Albion are working to civilise the loathsome orcs, putting them to productive use in the name of righteousness, and I have high hopes that we one day might be able to use such dumb beasts as cheap labour, but alas! Other things slow down the march of all that is right and proper.  
  
“I am trying to get more funds to expand the authority of the crown to combat such malignant forces, expanding the army and keeping security as our watchword to fight the forces of terror, but sadly the high nobility are being obstructionist.” The duc sneered. “Especially the duc de la Vallière. He claims we intrude on the traditional rights of the nobility when we make perfectly reasonable proposals to defend us from Evil. Well, I say we need only see what generations of de la Vallières have done with those rights!”   
  
He smiled, as the muffled sounds of a disturbance could be heard from outside the lavish chamber.   
  
“Of course, what I say is naturally a private conversation, but I have heard certain... rumours that he has dabbled in dark magic himself. While in his youth he may have been a hero, it would not be unheard of for someone such as him, especially one who lives on cursed land – cursed by the actions of his ancestors, I might add – to fall to evil. After all, even his very own mother was a murderer who killed hundreds of innocents to bathe in their blood, and we know how magical talent – and perhaps other things – pass from the mother, do we not? But of course, it would be unfair to defame him. I merely think we should consider whether the disappearance of his youngest daughter – who by all accounts was a failure, perhaps because of tainted blood which he might have blamed himself for – perhaps drove him over the edge to madness.”  
  
There was a distinctly uncomfortable silence from three of the oh-so-brave heroes, and a flick of a page from Tabitha. “Eez dreadful shame,” she said, flatly. “I... what eez that noise?”  
  
“Yes, indeed! What _is_ that noise?” the duc de Richleau asked, half-twisting in his seat. “There's a commotion going on outside and it is rather annoying.”  
  
The door splintered at the hinges, and fell in. Everyone rose, in shock and surprise.  
  
“All right!” said the newcomer, in a voice which did not so much 'say' things as 'bellow' or possibly 'assert'. “All rise! Rrrrawrr! The room just got six thousand percent sexier! There you are, ducky!” he said to Richleau. “Your queen's just a good kisser as usual, you know! I went where only two men and one woman have been before! And your maids are a fine crop this year!” The man dumped the rather ruffled maid he was carrying onto the ground unceremoniously, and spread his arms wide. “My son! Give your father a manly hug!”  
  
It was at this point Montmorency noticed two things. Firstly, she distinctly heard the duc de Richleau sigh 'Oh Founder, it's him'. And secondly, from somewhere a false moustache has appeared and now dwelt on Kirche's upper lip. It was not as fine a moustache as the one which lived on the newcomer, which was waxed such that it reached out to his ears, but it was clearly aiming in a similar direction.  
  
It was a very nice moustache, the blonde could not help but think. And it somehow made even Kirche seem... tingly.  
  
The man with the gigantic moustache gave his cross-dressing daughter a bone-crushing hug. In fact, from the way that Kirche paled and made a faint 'ghee' sound, it was possibly not a metaphor to describe it in that way.  
  
“I still see you're associating with that flat-chested wonder, boy,” the markgraf bellowed, glancing over at Tabitha, who was reading. “I keep on telling you, she'll be a stunner in ten years time, but you need to stop her wearing glasses. Only men who are inadequate in the trouser department need their women to put on optical enhancement! For you, she'll need to put on a blindfold, or her brain might melt from the blinding glory of the greatest weapon of the von Zerbsts! Rrrrawr!”  
  
Kirche didn't say anything, because there wasn't much you could really say to a remark like that. Monmon was about to object, before Kirche deliberately stood on her foot. Sadly, the hopping-up-and-down-in-pain drew the markgraf's attention, as motion tended to do.  
  
“And who's this?” he asked, eyeing up the blonde in a way which left her feeling somewhat naked under the gaze.  
  
“She's with me,” interrupted Kirche hastily, wheezing. “As in, _with_ me.”  
  
The man snorted. “You could do better, son! But at least she's better than boobless bluey over there!”  
  
“What?” Montmorency managed.  
  
“So, where haven't you been, father!” Kirche said.  
  
“Exactly! Rrawwwr!” He accompanied that statement with unnecessary pelvic thrusting. “But now this is a place I haven't not been! See that? I just tied that sentence into a knot! Just like a pair of very flexible Gallian sisters I met down in Tolou! That was one hell of a knot! Under, over, under again, figure of eight, half-nelson and then securing it with a shawshank! Rrrawwrr!”  
  
Guiche had by this pointed started shaking. “You're... you're the Markgraf Blitzhart von Zerbst!” he managed. “The... the best swordsman, drinker, giant-slayer and lover in all of Germania!”  
  
“Well recognised, boy,” the markgraf said, before wrinkling his nose as he looked Guiche up and down. “Though what are you? Some kind of poof? Grow some facial hair!”  
  
“I have all your books!” Guiche blurted out. “Even 'Breaking Into The Shuttered Garden: My Adventures In Rub-al-Khali'. And that was really hard to find!”  
  
“Damn straight it was! I burned all but thirty eight of the copies! Just for the sweet, sweet smell of burning paper!” He paused. “Oh, ducky!”  
  
“Yes,” the duc de Richelieu said, eye twitching.   
  
“Got a giant thing for you! Something you've wanted to see for a long while, but which you could never get for yourself! Because you're a dry wrinkled old prune, if you know what I mean! Rwrarrrrr! Hurrah!”  
  
“Hurrah!” called out Guiche.  
  
“Yay,” said Tabitha.  
  
The markgraf dropped a sack from his back, which made a thudding noise. “It's the head of the man-eating demon-blooded necromantic giantess who's been tormenting your dull-as-dishwater countryside! I introduced her to the great weapon of the von Zerbsts, and then I cut her head off! Hurrah!”  
  
“Hurrah!”  
  
“Yay.”  
  
“Now, son! Glad to see you stop a plot! Burn down any interesting buildings belonging to wrongdoers?”  
  
“A few,” Kirche said, swaying slightly, before she blinked. “I mean, I... I hit them like a burning rock and left all the attractive... attractive women in there with the hots! H-hurrah!”  
  
“Hurrah!” her father bellowed. “Your mother sends her love and tells you to wrap up warm! And your brothers aren't doing terribly enough for me to disown them! Now, I just need to get my money off yonder ducky, and then we can go boozing! You can take your filly, boobless blue and pretty boy with you if you must!”  
  
Montmorency, for her part, was rather more concerned by Kirche's state than she was at the idea of going drinking with this man, and that was worrying her in its own right. The other girl was, under the moustache, much paler than usual, and she seemed to be unsteady on her feet. “Kirche, can I talk with you? In private?” she said, leaning towards her.  
  
The look of gratitude on the redhead's face was almost pathetic. “Oh, want to get my clothes off me to check out my b-body this early in the evening?” Kirche said.  
  
“Yes,” Monmon answered accurately, albeit not truthfully.   
  
“Good on you, son! Rrrawwr! I'll give you half an hour! In the meantime, how about ducky gives me my money, and in the meantime we can talk about how amazing I am!”  
  
“I would be honoured, sir!” Guiche said, bowing repeatedly. “Is it true that you once killed a succubus from exhaustion?”  
  
“Ah ha ha ha ha! Nonsense! I laugh that that suggestion! She only collapsed from exhaustion! I had to break her neck myself! And then I beat her sister to death with the corpse! Talk about the 'little death'! Rrrawwrr!”  
  
“Killing giants? Eyesocket from start or eez eet better for ze leg tendons first?” asked Tabitha. “Pain or quick killing?”

* * *

Montmorency led Kirche out of the room. She ended up staggering as she tried to support the other girl's weight, and she could feel her trembling. She managed, by the expedient measure of telling a servant than the Markgraf von Zerbst had told them to go to a private room, to find a place with a lockable door and a bed, and then eased Kirche down onto it.  
  
“What's up with you?” she demanded.  
  
“Hurts,” Kirche managed. “Think... think he bent the corsetry. Digging in. Can't breathe. Hurts quite a lot.” Her fingers scrabbled at the laces of the doublet, to reveal a dented corset which more resembled a light suit of armour than the low-cut chemise which Monmon herself was wearing under her dress. “I... can walk you through. Start with... the straps on the shoulder.”  
  
After a few minutes of breathy instructions, the last laces came undone, and the blonde managed to lever the construct of whalebone and iron off her friend. Kirche sucked in a relieved gasp of air. “I owe you one,” she said. “Okay, we can put it back on looser and...”  
  
“Not so fast.” Monmon narrowed her eyes. “I don't like the way you're breathing. Take the bandages off, too.”  
  
Slowly, the bandages which had been aiding in the bosom-binding to allow them to fit into the corset were unfolded, to reveal the skin underneath. “Oh, for goodness…” Monmon sucked in a breath in sympathy when she saw the fresh livid bruises on Kirche’s front. “You really are an idiot, you know! Those bandages were far too tight! You were cutting off all circulation! You…” she began testing the ribs with her fingertips, prompting a yelp from Kirche. “I thought so! You idiot! You’ve actually gone and fractured a rib! Your father fractured at least one rib, and...” Kirche yelped again as the blonde poked another one, “I think that one's busted too! That's more than that werewolf who punched you did!”  
  
“Can you get the shouting done after you do the pain-stopping, please?” Kirche said quietly. “And dad didn't mean to do it. And it was only a wolfwere, and it was in human form at the time. So there's no need to shout about it.”  
  
“No! No I certainly will not,” the blonde snapped. “I will keep on shouting at you even while I check if that’s the only thing you broke in your idiotic attempts to dress like a handsome... like a man!” Founder damn it, why had she said handsome? It was that damnable moustache! That's what it was! With everything else Kirche had on, it was somehow enough to shift her mental image of the other girl to 'pretty man' rather than woman.  
  
“You think I like this?” Kirche growled. “You see how I dress normally. Yes, there are some good things about dressing like a man – I can’t stand long skirts – but you think I get some kind of _pleasure_ from having to bind my chest so I can’t breathe?”  
  
“Then why do it?”   
  
Kirche gave a bitter laugh, which turned into a sigh of relief when the healing magic began. “Oh, come on. Put it together. You saw my father. He wants a son – a legitimate one. So he gets a son. In fact, he gets lots of sons. Despite the fact me and my sisters are… well, girls.”  
  
Monmon blinked, sitting back. “Wait. You mean he actually thinks that… that. That wasn’t just some overblown persona? Like how Guiche pretends to be more noble and more foppish than he actually is?”  
  
“My father is like that all the time,” Kirche informed her. “He views us being born female as a saddening birth defect that we can get over with training and the proper behaviour. ‘No daughter of mine will be a weak woman’ and all that. I only found out that I was a girl when I was nine when other boys made fun of me when we went swimming.” Kirche’s face darkened. “That was a pretty horrible day, all in all.”  
  
“Uh.” The blonde sat back, the glow of magic fading. “I… how does that even work? Girls are girls and boys are… boys.”  
  
“You tell the child they’re a boy, treat them like a boy, breach them, call them your son.” Kirche snorted. “You know how you get on my back for doing things like sitting wrong and talking when chewing? And say I clearly wasn’t raised to be a proper lady? Yeah. You’ve got me dead to rights there.” She sighed. “Incidentally, would you mind mussing up your hair and getting your clothes slightly askew before we go back? It’ll make my life so much easier.”  
  
“... fine,” the other girl said, reluctantly. “As long as you don't want anything from it. And you'll help explain things to Guiche.” She paused. “In fact, no, don't say anything about it to him. I'll just tell him that you needed me to adjust your lacing. You don't say a thing, because you'll probably end up implying _things_ and then he'll get _ideas_.”  
  
“Oh, you know me. I like boys. You've got nothing to fear from me. But oh, he doesn’t want some man-loving nancy effeminate wuss of a son,” Kirche said, her tone of voice shifting to mimic her father. “Real men do heroic deeds with a scantily-clad woman in one arm. Real men can make any woman love them, and leave a trail of conquests behind them.”  
  
“… but you’re not a real man,” Montmorency pointed out. “Although… uh, you do leave a trail of conquests behind you.”  
  
“They’re boys. They're a mark against my 'manliness'. You're still not thinking like him, Monmon. His sons were tragically born with something akin to a club foot or a hunchback. So he’ll help his poor crippled sons get over their deformities and live a normal life. Which is why he got me whores for my fourteenth birthday.”  
  
Montmorency said nothing. There… uh, wasn’t much she could say.  
  
“That was a really educational experience,” Kirche said. “Those twins knew all kinds of things.”  
  
The other girl could see a vast yawning chasm ahead of her in the conversation, yet somehow, in fascinated horror, could not say a single thing to avoid it.  
  
“I basically broke down in tears because I really, really didn’t want to do anything, didn't even know what I was meant to do, and they took pity on me,” Kirche continued. “I ended up spending the time asking them about the stuff my father’s probably never even thought about from the female perspective and my mother’s too pathetic to explain to a growing girl. I should almost be thanking him for it, except what I got from it was... probably the opposite of what he wanted. Talking rather than... ow, don't poke that!”  
  
The blonde sighed in relief. “Well… that could have gone worse,” she said to herself.  
  
“Tell me about it,” Kirche said. “Now, if you don't mind? My ribs? And maybe the bruising too?” She raised her hands in mock surrender. “You can lace it up this time and make sure it's not too tight, if you must,” she said.  
  
The next few minutes were intensely awkward for Montmorency de la Montmorency. Not because of the healing; it was a fairly simple magic, and the breaks were only partial. No, what it meant was that she had to spend time leaning over Kirche. Close to the moustache and the way it suddenly seemed to call to her to try kissing those lips.  
  
“You want to know one of the reasons I got you lot into the adventuring thing in the first place?” Kirche said, talking mostly to herself. “Because to be frank, my position isn't too secure. Oh, he loves me. But I don't doubt for a moment if he had a _real_ son, I wouldn't be his heir any more. At the moment, I'm just his least-bad choice, and my mother is still having babies, and he'll remarry if she dies. Unless something manages to kill him, my place isn't all that secure.” She winced, not from the physical pain. “I don't want him dead! I love him; he's my father! But... the odds are against me staying his heir. So I need money and preferably land of my own, or I'll end up dependent on a baby brother or... or he'll decide he's fine with having a daughter now he has a real son and he'll marry me off to some old geezer.” She sighed. “I want to be in a position where I can marry for love, or at the very least my own personal gain, not his. So we need to go adventuring. You get that, even if Guiche and Tabby don't seem to.”  
  
“Yes,” the blonde said tersely. Montmorency just had to focus on the clearly-female chest, and she didn't have to think about it. Everything was fine as long as she didn't look at the face. And then... argh, argh, Founder damn it, when the bandages went back on and then they started on the corset, there wasn't a safe place to look.  
  
Calm down, she told herself. You're interested in Guiche, after all. Well, interested when he's not being a jerk and thoughtless and looking at other women and you're not jealous when he does that, you just don't see what you like about him when he acts like a pig. But that means you like your men more... clean. Smoother. Soft-skinned. Not like some bearded leathery butcher. So... when Kirche is dressed like a man, trying to pretend to be a man, she's just... fooling you! You're not attracted to her, you're attracted to the son her father wants who she's pretending to be!  
  
… which wasn't a bad thing, because you did have to admit, for a man of his age Blitzhart von Zerbt had aged very well.  
  
Oh yes! And this is just _acting_. She has to pretend to her father – Founder, he sounds horrible – that she is dating you like... like a man would! So getting hot and flustered and embarrassed will just help persuade him! So everything is safe! And...  
  
“Kirche, please take off the moustache. It's off-putting,” she begged.  
  
And with it gone, everything was better.

* * *

“... and would you have it, but we were surrounded on all four sides!” the markgraf roared. “So what I did was, I picked up my sword, and told the men, 'You call this a tercio? You're going to be in a whole world of hurtsio if you don't fight your way out of a simple envelopment! Because I'll kill you myself!' And would you know, they bucked their aim right up and we fought our way out! And on the way, this dragon was going to try to eat me when... wham! I jumped up, broke the hinges of its jaw, and its rider was so overcome by passion that she fainted! Nice girl! Shame about the eyebrow, but that's what you get from an Iberian! Hurrah!”  
  
“Hurrah!”  
  
“Yay.” Tabitha coughed. “Undetectable poisons? What eez the most leezal someone haz used on you?”  
  
“Basalisk venom is always a pain in the guts!” the red-haired man said. “Tastes pretty good, but makes your insides cramp up! And by that, I mean your lungs! Someone dosed me once, but I just drank a bottle of fine Rusean spirits and then set fire to it! Burns it out! Same reason it can't be put in cooked food!”  
  
“Ah.” Tabitha made a note. “Mix wiz a heat-activated venom, zen.”  
  
“Tried that on me! Romalian sleezeball; said he'd poisoned one cup of two, and told me to pick one! I slugged that slimy Romalian one, and then made him drink both! If some git tries to put you in some bloody stupid logic puzzle or – worse – poetical justice thing with poetry and such crap, slug 'em one! Always served me well in life!”  
  
“Fazcinating.”   
  
Blitzhart von Zerbst rose, grinning broadly at the sight of the dishevelled Kirche and Montmorency, although his face fell slightly at the sight of the notably change in Kirche's shape which the loosening of the corsetry had produced. “Get her on her knees, thanking God and Founder for the day you were born?” he asked.  
  
“Less praying, more screaming and shouting,” Kirche said, finding refuge in factual accuracy.   
  
“Good lad! If a woman can sit down after you're done with them, you're doing them wrong!” The markgraf checked his pocket watch. “Good heavens, is that the time? Curse it! I was just too awesome to explain how awesome I am in just thirty minutes! I nearly took a whole hour! Sorry, lad! I've just remembered; I've got half an hour to get across the city and stop abyssal cultists from blowing up the blackpowder depot down by the waterside! Got to run!”  
  
And with that said, he jumped out the window with a shattering of glass.  
  
There was a moment of shocked silence, and then a distant 'hurrah' from the street below.  
  
“What a man,” Guiche said, with a great sigh. “Founder! If I could just be half… no, a fifth as dashing as him, well, I’d be so dashing I could win any race you’d care to mention.”  
  
“’E eez… ‘ow do you say it, ‘the man’, no?” Tabitha said indistinctly, studiously sketching something in the margins of her book. “I wonder eef ‘e would keel a king eef ‘e thought ze man was evil? Eef he 'ad found some evidence, perhaps, no?”  
  
“Oh, he would and has,” Kirche said morosely. “He has the head of Ferdinand the Black mounted on the wall at home. Next to the head of a dragon, and Xyctlymrnyl the Unpronounceable, who tried to invade our lands. That was an ‘exciting’ Silver Pentecost. The demons were a welcome relief considering the mood my father was in because my youngest brother was another girl.” She sighed. “My family is mucked up.”  
  
“That eez fascinating,” Tabitha sad, the corners of her mouth creeping up slyly. “And I would not say zat zere… there eez a problem with you.”  
  
Montmorency cleared her throat. “Guiche,” she suggested. “Have you ever thought of growing a moustache?”  
  
“Yes,” the boy said, eyes gleaming. “You heard his advice, too?”  
  
“... yes, of course,” the girl said hastily. “His advice is totally the best. You should see what you look like with one. See if he was right.” She laughed nervously. “No other reason.”  



	22. Party Up 5-1

_“Dear diary. They’re going to be announcing the invites for the Silver Pentagram winter award ceremonies today, and I know I’m on at least one longlist. This is so exciting! I should get shortlisted, if anything’s fair! Surely the Profaneglade libertines will accept that my work’s all over the journals! Dad says not to get my hopes up, because I’m up against both the way my mother was Heroic and mortal, and his own reduced status, but I really, really want this! Even if I don’t win, I should at least get an invite, right?”_  
  
–  J’eszika Moraudat D’aemonstrelle Obfuscata Xystene Elee’ze Imoegene Malevola Ebony Invidia Pyrene va S'kareryeon , Princess of the Blood-in-Exile of the Abyss, Vicomtesse of the Descending Spheres (contested claim), Heir Apparent to the Rising Tower (contested claim)

* * *

Deep below the earth, in wretched, stinking places, the forces of Evil gather. In their wicked, sinful ways, they prepare for their foul plans and gather what resources they need to eternally overthrow the weakened world of all that is good and proper. The men and women of Righteousness have often wished that they knew all the horrific deeds their opponents plotted in their secret fortresses, but alas! Such knowledge is not for mortal men to know.  
  
“I’m sure the room is changing in size!” wailed Cattleya de la Vallière, falling to her knees in abject despair. “Why can’t I get the carpet to fit properly?”  
  
Her maid stared back at her in incomprehension. “You said it was twenty metres across both times, my lady?” she said slowly.  
  
“No, not exactly! It… it was twenty metres and nineteen centimetres the first time, and twenty metres and twenty one centimetres the second time! And… and if I’m wrong, I’ll have to see how there’s a bit of exposed carpet around the edges of the room, or it’s all bunched up, and it’ll drive me just _crazy_.” Cattleya shuddered, but elegantly. “It’d be as bad as if the paintings were squint!”  
  
With a great, chest-heaving sigh she threw herself face-down onto her new bed, and bounced. For all that the wretched carpet was working against her, it was nevertheless a good room. Much, much larger than her one at home; her sister had told her to take free pick of them, as it wasn’t like she had a shortage. She had so much space she had put her things in a smaller area, and installed paper walls like the ones in books about the Mystic East to keep the space more manageable. Her bed was lovely, and they’d packed the area under it with soil from the de la Vallière estate so she was sleeping wonderfully in the day. And she had jolly nice statues of roses that she’d found in an old abandoned room in the tower and glued back together, and she had helped usher a bunch of bats into living in the rafters and enthralled them so they only pooed outside her room, and generally did all those jolly useful things which made a place feel homey.  
  
There had been so much space, she had even got Anne a nice room about the size of Cattleya’s own place at home. The poor girl seemed to be moping slightly from lack of sunlight, but she was allowed to go out whenever she wanted and seemed to be getting on very well with the adorable little minions. It was lovely to see everything turning out so well!  
  
Rolling back over, Cattleya noticed that Anne had her hand raised. She was just placidly waiting there, waiting for Cattleya to give her permission to sleep. She pursed her lips. The girl was getting weaker, duller and less… independent, which suggested that she had to give her a break from feeding. Or possibly that she should just accept that she would be that way, and go ahead and enthral her so at least that way she’d get some extra powers from it and… no! Cattleya deliberately bit her own tongue in punishment. She wasn’t meant to think like that. It was wrong and it was naughty and while it was acceptable to enthral animals – as, after all, normal mages turned animals into familiars – to do that to a human would be wrong.  
  
She clearly needed to get away from Anne and her tempting, tempting blood for a while, and take a break while going back to bland bland bland animal. Just because she was away from home and might be allowing herself more human once in a while was not an excuse for sloppiness and getting into bad habits. Bad habits would get her in so much trouble with Mother when her and Louise went back home.  
  
“What is it, Anne?” she asked, because the girl had been standing there patiently with her hand raised while the internal debate occurred.  
  
“I can finish the carpet things,” the other girl said slowly. “I… I will get the big size, and I will cut it down if it is too large. And measure it again before, to be sure.”  
  
Rolling over, Cattleya pushed off her bed, and gave her maid a – literally – flying hug. “You’re so right!” she said, delighted. “I’ll leave this in your hands. I just can’t stand not getting this right! So I won’t look! It’s the best solution!” Landing again, her dress flapping around her in an unseen wind, she stepped outside of her room, and looked up and down – flinching slightly away from the burning torch at one end of the corridor.  
  
Steeling her nerves, Cattleya took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and ran past it.  
  
Yes. She really needed a breath of fresh air. And a drink of fresh blood, because her pyrophobia was getting worse. She could feel herself getting all dry, from the inside-out. Like a sponge slowly dripping down into a basin. And if she had to go out hunting… she might as well ask her sister if she had anything useful for her to do.  
  
Oooh! Oooh! And she could get her a surprise present for the Silver Pentecost while she was out! Which made it much better that she was going out to drain most of the life from some poor innocent animal!

* * *

In the cavernous depths of the treasury, illuminated by burning torches, the minions were working.  
  
“Remember, you slackers, gold and gems go in that corner, silver in that corner, and other metals in that one! All stuff what does not look like shinies is to go in middle, to be sorted later! Silver what have vampy blood on it and other metal what is dirty go to Igni and other reds in middle, who will do their cleaniness on it!” yelled Maggat, pacing up and down in his armour made of skeletons like the world’s smelliest and most morbid assayer. “If any of you reds go burny on paintings, I beat your skulls in! If you go burny again after you get brought back, I give you to Fettid! We is sorting the money of the overlady and stuff what lose her money make her angry and her voice go loud and high-pitched and use long words and so it make me angry!”  
  
“Uh! Hello?!” called a voice from the door, keeping well back. The overlady’s sister poked her head in. “Uh… where is Louise? Do you know?”  
  
Maggat narrowed his eyes at the vampire. He had not entirely forgiven her for tearing his head off, but the overlady would be unhappy at him if he took revenge and an unhappy overlord often took days to let you die. “The mistress is with the hive,” he said. “She doing stuff with it.”  
  
“Oh. Okay!” There was a pause. “Oh, you’re all so cute!” the vampire called out, before vanishing.  
  
“I more like handsome,” Maxy said.  
  
“I certainly cute,” Fettid volunteered, fingering her cleavers.  
  
“No, Fettid, you cut-e,” Maxy said.  
  
“That too!” the green agreed cheerfully. She produced a knife from somewhere and twirled it expertly, giving it a thoughtful look as she did. “You know, I thinking, maybe I need to see if I can stealsies some cursed magic knives or something. Overlady not a knifey kind of overlady, so she not want to use them. I not see why, because knivesies are the stabbitiest kinda thing ever, but she is overlady so her way not for us to know.”  
  
“Like long wordsies!”  
  
“And what peoples what are not Maxy and so crazy see in poetry!”  
  
Igni looked up sadly. “Overlady now have sister around, and sister is vampy, so we going to have a lot of…” he focussed, “melon-drama and with melon-dramas come poetry,” he said. “I tell you…” and that was as far as he got before his inattention led to one of the other reds inadvertently tossing a fireball into the noxious chemicals before him.  
  
The explosion sent horned bodies flying everywhere, often in several parts. The younger Minions outside the blast radius ogled and ‘aw’ed in glee, while their more experienced kin merely ducked to avoid the occasional leg, being accustomed to far more impressive carnage.  
  
A red hand landed limply before Maggat, twitching. Idly, he picked it up for a blue to take. But now he had five hands. Well, he had five hands which were not his. So… he had one human hand’s worth of hands.  
  
Wait a moment.  
  
His eyes opened wide, in sudden, horrified realisation of a cosmic truth which forced its way into his minionly brain.  
  
If… if he had a hand of hands, then what if he had a hand of hand of hands? But it would be really hard to carry around that many hands, so what if he instead used the fingers on one hand to count the number of imaginary hands he had? And then a hand of hand of hand of hands? Beyond that… why, he’d have to get more hands to count the hands which he was counting on.  
  
Maggat twitched slightly.  
  
“Oy!” yelled out Igni. “Maggat! That my hand you got! What is you, stoopid? I not give it to you because I like you! I not give it to you at all!”  
  
The hand fell out of Maggat’s grasp with a wet thud, and the brown-skinned minion stared at the coins scattered on the floor before him with new eyes. “There are… three hands and four coins in front of me,” he breathed in the voice of one announcing a revolutionary discovery.  
  
“What was that?”  
  
“I dunno.”  
  
“I think… it sound like Gnarl when he do the counting?”  
  
“Nah, can’t be.”  
  
Maggat raised his voice. “There are… one hand and one hand… there are two hand burning torches in this room.”  
  
“It is! It are advanced mathematics!”  
  
“No! Maggat! You go too far! There is some things that minionkind is not meant to know!”  
  
“Yeah!” interjected a red, nervously playing with his – or possibly her, given it was wearing something which was either a skirt or a kilt – horns. “You no know con-see-kwince-es of actions! Think of what Goodness could be released if you keep on doing this kind of dangerous stuff! Blues, they can bring you back from deadness, but your thinkyness! It could go mad and blues not be able to fix stuff in head.”  
  
“Unless stuff in head like… arrow, or axe or stuff like that,” a brown contributed helpfully. “Blueys get lotsa loot from stuff left in heads of dead minions.”  
  
“That true, yeah. But thinkyness in thinky head is not something blue can pull out before doing blue magic-yness. It like… like pary-site, only one you can’t pull out and roast and eat!”  
  
“Shut it! You just jealous of my knowingness!” Maggat snapped “I show you right now! There is…” he paused, and began to focus on the skeletal hands, flicking their fingers as his darting eyes flickered over the room, tongue sticking out in the agony of hypercognition, “… there is one hand-hand. And three hand. And four minions in this room! No! Because I is a minion, so that make one hand-hand and four hand total!”  
  
“I not listen to filth like this! You is playing with stuff you is not under-standing!”  
  
“But do you know that he no know, no? How can that be? If you know that he no know then you know the knowingness he no know and that mean you know it – and then you is no proper bad because that mean you are a hippo-crit – but if you no know what he might know then you no know what he no know or know and so your knowingness do not let you know if he no know the knowingness because you no know if he know to know the knowing that no should be known,” contributed Maxy. “Ow ow ow,” he added, as rocks were thrown at him. “Argh!” he concluded as Fettid stabbed him through the hand. “That was dis-prop-or-shunate!”  
  
“But I no prop up anything,” Fettid said, her eyes gleaming with innocence, or more likely stupidity. “I can has my knifey back? It is stuck in your handie.”  
  
“You know what is Maggat’s rules! I is only allowed to be stabbed when I is actually playing music and doing poetry at the same time!”  
  
“Yeah, that was silly thing to do,” Maggat said half-heartedly, his mind still struggling to come to terms with the world-changing discovery he had just made. “Fettid, take the knifey back and throw rocks at Maxy like the rest of us do.”  
  
“Ow!”

* * *

The minion hive was a cantankerous blossom of dark malevolence. From within the incident horror of its protean vicissitudes, the ultimate evil lurked, waiting to…  
  
“Kill me!”  
  
Louise stared at the horrifically malformed minion with a disgusted look on her face. Minions were usually no lookers, generally looking like they had been pushed off the ugly mountain and hit every ugly tree on the way down before landing in the ugly swamp – which explained the smell – but this… thing which had just crawled out of the minion hive made the minions look like society beauties.  
  
One of its eyeballs was hanging out on a cord. The left arm had apparently stolen all the muscles from the shrivelled right arm. And its skin was a tie-die mix of the other minions, which made it look like something had been sick on it.  
  
“Kill me!”  
  
“Well, that’s another unsuccessful attempt, my lady,” Gnarl said, casually. “At least you’re helping us repopulate the menagerie.” Another two minions grabbed the malformed monstrosity and dragged it off with a pleading “Kill me!”  
  
Louise slumped down on her workdesk, grumpy resignation starting to set in. “Maybe that was just too much fire essence this time,” she said, pouting. “It had horns, at least. At least I’ll get better.”  
  
“Oh, usually most overlords get it down straight away,” her vizier said heartlessly.  
  
“Sh-shut up! Stupid Gnarl! I… I’m just not used to it yet! And I bet the vampire broke it with… he tainted it with death magic or something so it has to work it out of its system! It’s not my fault!” Louise frowned. “Maybe next time, we reduce the gestation time, but use half as much earth-aspected life force,” she suggested.  
  
“I am sure it will be instructional,” Gnarl said neutrally.  
  
The Louiseian explosion which would have shortly followed from her growing temper, however, was averted by Cattleya poking her head in. “Louise?”  
  
“What is it, Catt?” Louise asked gratefully, glad to have something to distract her from her continual failures to get the minion hive working properly. It was so aggravating! It was like she was back to her old frustrations of not-properly-working magic, after almost a year of successes! Evil magic had just been so… so easy for her! She had picked up entire tomes in days, mastering all sorts of fun things to do with fire – her main limit had been her source of new material. And now this!  
  
She was very much inclined to go find the Jester and kick him a few times. If she went near him, he’d probably insult her, so it wasn’t even as if it was premeditated.  
  
“Oh! Louise! You’re looking nice today,” Cattleya said admiringly. “It’s nice to see you not wearing plate, and that brings out your better side wonderfully.”  
  
Flattered, the girl smoothed down the front of her black dress. It was a very nice dress, she had to admit; high in the neck and collar – with just a hint of padding in the chest – which used its traceries of silver demonic runes to subtly suggest that she went in a little more in certain places and out rather more in others. And it was much lighter than the plate. “I felt I just wanted to get away from the clanking,” she said girlishly. It wasn’t like she was jealous of her sister or how now there was another woman around the place – minions didn’t count – she was feeling graceless in her armour. Of course not. “Is something the matter?”  
  
“Nope! I’m just going out to see if I can find some food, and I was wondering if you want me to pick something up while I’m out?”  
  
Louise blinked. “Actually, yes,” she said quickly, eyes darting around the room for something before she found what she was looking for. She handed it to her sister.  
  
“… Louise, that’s… uh, a sack.”  
  
“Yes. Go kidnap some goblins for me. I…” she waved a hand, “… uh, still don’t have the hive down pat, and we’re a little short… don’t you dare make a short joke! Don’t you dare!”  
  
“… I wasn’t going to.”  
  
“Sorry. Force of habit. But we need more minions, and goblins can be converted using the tower heart. There’s some tribes still left in the forest to the south, where the land gets less marshy… there should also be some wild animals there for you, okay? Oh, and I was saving this for a present, but I bought an amulet from Scarron which should let you talk to me, as long as I keep wearing the Gauntlet.” She handed it over, and suppressed a brief scowl of annoyance at how Cattleya effortlessly made it look elegant.  
  
“Okay!” Cattleya said enthusiastically, bouncing over to give her sister a hug. “I’ll be helpful, don’t you worry! And we can get more cute little minions around the place… and it’s winter, so the goblins are probably starving so really we’re saving them from things.”  
  
“It is true,” Gnarl nodded sagely. “Any goblin that becomes a minion is being saved.”  
  
“Exactly!” Cattleya said cheerfully. “And… and I’ll see if I can find more wolves and bats out there for your legion of darkness, Louise!”  
  
“… fine,” Louise said, who rather wished her sister wouldn’t call it that.

* * *

In the cold winter night, two goblins ran for their lives.  
  
They were the last ones left. The last ones of their whole tribe, which had once numbered almost forty. But then the harsh winter had winnowed their ranks – made worse by an unsuccessful raid on a human village which had cost them – and now there was something stalking them. A monster. It had picked them off one by one, and now it was just them. The torches kept it away, but…  
  
Something moved behind them.  
  
The goblins swallowed.  
  
From the undergrowth emerged a wolf, midnight-black fur dusted with snow. Or at least, something akin to a wolf. Most wolves were not the size of a small horse, and neither, for that matter, did most wolves have eyes which glowed a dull red, or incisors the size of a man’s hand. Of course, most monstrous horse-sized red-eyed long-toothed demon-wolves did not have a coat tucked into the belt tied around their neck, but the goblins were not in a position to appreciate this departure from theme.  
  
The demon-wolf howled, and a pack of lesser glowing-eyed wolves emerged after it, to surround the hapless goblins. For its part, the monster disappeared back into the woods, to re-emerge as a bare-footed Cattleya de la Valliere wearing a hastily thrown on coat. She showed no sign of discomfort or redness in her pale feet as they sunk into the snow.  
  
“You are naughty, naughty little goblins,” she scolded the greenish-skinned creatures trapped in the circle of her wolves. “Very naughty indeed! Why were you running away like that?”  
  
From the night sky, bats dropped down straight at the goblins. One of them dropped their torch, which went out immediately. The wolves closed in, and the two creatures desperately pulled in closer and closer.  
  
The last torch was extinguished by a snowball which would better be described with adjectives intended to describe gunshots. And then it was all over bar the concussing and the stuffing into sacks.  
  
“Good puppies!” Cattleya said delightedly. “You’re so well behaved! You trapped them and their nasty, nasty torches perfectly! I will have to get you a treat before we get home. Because you deserve it because you’re so, so good!” Kneeling, she wrapped her arms around the head of the largest black-furred sharp-fanged red-eyed monster, and rubbed her cheek against its coarse fur. “Hunting is so much fun! And…”  
  
The wolf, which was tolerating her exuberance, shrunk back and whined. The others in the pack retreated too, pulling back into the woods. Cattleya slowly rose, nostrils flaring as she sniffed at the air – old blood, wet animal, something sweet she couldn’t identify – and her hands twisted into talons.  
  
And then untwisted themselves as she saw what had entered the glade.  
  
The unicorn seemed almost spectral, barely real. In the snowy light, the hide of the beautiful beast looked almost purple-tinted. Its hooves barely left prints on the snow, and it somehow managed to gallop through the frozen plantlife without disturbing it.  
  
“Oh!” Cattleya said, weakly, breaking into a fanged smile of wonder. “Oh my! You’re gorgeous! You really are. If I had any apples with me, I’d give you one!” She had always loved horses and riding before she had become one of the living dead, and the way she hadn’t been able to do it in years had been a real blow. It’d been ten years since she’d been near a horse, and this was a unicorn and it was _beautiful_.  
  
It seemed to hear her, because it paused, and cocked its head, looking at her with one eye and then the other. One forehoof pawed at the ground, and it lowered its head innocently.  
  
“Do you want to be stroked? Oh? Are you cold?

* * *

“Where the lights? Why we all standing around in the dark?”  
  
Louise glared at her newest construct. It did not glare back, because it had no eyes. It seemed to be part of a theme, because her last one had had no eyes. It had done something that she could only assume was screaming, in the short period before it asphyxiated. She’d settle for one with no ears next, thank you very much.  
  
“Kill me!”  
  
“Who say that?”  
  
“Minions!” she hollered. “Take the failures away!”  
  
What was going wrong? What proportions was she mucking up? Yes, it was – as Gnarl told her – not a ‘true’ minion hive, but it shouldn’t be going this wrong! Which meant it had to be all the fault of her doubly deceased ancestor and the fact that, by all accounts, he had been linked up to it for generations. Stomping over where she was keeping her notes, she scribbled ‘No eyes’ next to ‘Try #19’.  
  
She was in such a mood that she even managed to get somewhat annoyed at how she wasn’t wearing her armoured boots. They were better shoes for stomping in.  
  
So. Try #20. She flicked through one of the black tomes that Gnarl had found for her. A lack of eyes in one’s minions was often a sign of too much earth-aligned lifeforce, because it made them have something of the nature of rock about them, blind and unfeeling and tough. So if she reduced the earth, and slightly increased all three of the others… hmm. Maybe she should just increase the wind-aligned lifeforce.  
  
Her musings were interrupted by her gauntlet chiming. “What is it, Catt?” Louise sighed.  
  
Cattleya coughed. “ _Well_ ,” she began, promisingly. “ _Uh. Louise, I just got impaled by a unicorn. And now I’m up a tree. And… and it’s using its magic to throw rocks at me. But don’t worry! I don’t need most of my organs so everything’s fine! I’ll just need to find some blood to repair my…_ ” there was a pause, “ _… uh, yes, I think that’s mostly intestine! And my skin too, of course! And… ow! Dratted thing! Stop it with the rocks!_ ”  
  
Louise looked up from her journal for a moment, and stared blankly at the wall. Several questions insistently tried to raise themselves to her attention, though the resignation with which they did so was probably a sign that she was getting too accustomed to the strangeness of this Overlady business. After a short pause, her brain restarted. “Well… well kill it then, Catt!” she said. “It’s a blasted unicorn, it’s trying to kill you, that makes it self-defence! And it’s a horse and horses are evil… well, they try to attack me when I’ve done nothing to hurt them! You… yes, you can call wolves, right? Have them attack it.”  
  
“ _I did! You know, to scare it off. It killed them too! The horn is really sharp!_ ”  
  
“Then turn into a bat and fly away,” Louise said. “I don’t want you getting hurt or killed, Catt.” She paused. “More hurt. Or… uh, more killed.”  
  
“ _But I got you some goblins and they’re down on the ground and… that’s horrible! It… it’s trampling them! Deliberately! That’s… that’s really mean!_ ”  
  
“Just turn into a bat and fly away,” Louise repeated.  
  
“ _It’s not even doing it to kill them! It’s… it’s breaking their legs, one by one! It… my goodness, I feel sick! What was… yes! Yes, I will go fly away and leave that wicked, sinful horrible mean unicorn alone! And try to find you some more goblins!_ ”  
  
Louise returned to her unproductive work. She was up to Try #22, waiting while it incubated in the hive, when Cattleya called again. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying not to let her frustration sound in her voice.  
  
“Mmm?” she said.  
  
“ _Louise. It’s following me! I… somehow it followed me when I was a bat! It’s much faster than a horse! And I don’t have my sword with me because I can’t carry it around when I’m a wolf, and I left my coat up in the tree! And now I’m up another tree and it’s still throwing rocks at me!_ ”  
  
Louise pursed her lips. “Have you tried… you know, killing it?” she suggested to her sister. The minion hive hissed a venting of steam, as the incubation period finished. From the clouded depths, covered in ichor, came forth a monster, a terror, a…  
  
“Kill me!”  
  
The overlady gagged at the sight of the… the abomination she had just made. Organs were meant to be on the inside. So were brains.  
  
“How interesting,” Gnarl said. “I didn’t know minions could live through _that_. I’ll have to remember it.”  
  
“ _… no,_ ” Cattleya said, unaware of the full depths of her sister’s ventures into unethical manufacture of goblinoids. “ _Louise! How can you say that? It’s a unicorn! It’s a creature of mythical beauty and purity and… stop throwing rocks at me! It’s probably just angry because… you know, I’m a vampire! Well, that and the fact that someone seems to have branded it on the flank, which I bet would make anything furious. And… oh dear, what’s it doing with its horn? It’s all glowing and…_ ” Cattleya screamed, her voice shrill over the sound of breaking wood.  
  
“What is it, Catt?”  
  
“Kill me! Kill me!”  
  
“Shut up, you! Catt, talk to me!”  
  
“ _You sugar-headed fat-head!_ ” her sister shrieked. “ _That is it! I was being nice and you… you attacked me for no dratted reason! That was my hand! And an innocent tree!_ ”  
  
There was a bestial snarl and a high-pitched cackling, a tearing of flesh, and then a sound much like a milkshake being drunk through a straw. It went on for quite some time.  
  
“Your sister seems to be enjoying herself,” Gnarl observed.  
  
“Kill me!”  
  
“ _Uh… little sis? Sorry? It wasn’t my fault I… uh, had a little loss of control! But it’s still alive! There’s much more blood in a unicorn than can fit in my tummy, so I’m going to take it back and help its legs get better… well, I mean, it still has two, right? So can you make a room for me to keep it in while I help it get better, okay?_ ”  
  
“Kill meeeeee!”  
  
Louise snapped. With the constant frustrations of the day, with the way she was making mutilated minions, with the way she was sure Gnarl was snickering at her and for how Cattleya was being so Cattleya. Face scarlet, she levelled the Gauntlet at the mutilated minion. Yes, it wasn’t necessarily its fault for being a horrific freak of nature, but… drat it, it was asking for it! Literally! She wasn’t even sure what spell she was trying to cast, but what resulted was an explosion.  
  
And what was standing when the smoke had cleared was not the pile of twisted flesh which had gone in. It was a minion, but… statuesque, albeit the kind of statues which were worshipped by cults which were banned in all civilised states. Oily black skin gleamed over a wiry structure, phosphorescent eyes burning above a fanged maw. Its left hand was overly large, and green runes burned brightly like a mad constellation upon the night’s sky.  
  
“Your evilness,” it hissed, in a rasp. “What is your bidding? What would you have me kill?”  
  
“Oh my,” Gnarl said, stroking his goatee. “Oh my.”  
  
“… what. Is that?” said Louise slowly. “And why did it show up when I miscast… I mean, tried to blow it up?”  
  
“Well, well, well. I haven’t seen one of _those_ in such a very long time that I was a mere scrap of a minion, putting turnips on my head. You must have fed it raw Evil for that to happen. Very impressive… very impressive indeed. Do you wish to laugh maniacally, or rant about how other people thought you were fools and you will show them all?” he enquired.  
  
Louise blinked. “You think I should?” she asked.  
  
“Oh yes. That is a masterful accomplishment.” Gnarl shuffled his feet. “And it is traditional to do something of the sort, your evilness,” he added.  
  
“I am the pinnacle of minionkind, superior to these inferior _primitives_ ,” the new minion observed, sneering at the awed lesser minions around it. “Pray, give me orders. I long to fulfil them.”  
  
The girl swallowed. She didn’t like the way the… the new minion was looking at her. “Ahem. Ah ha,” she said. “Ah ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha…”  
  
“Blort,” said the new minion. Well, it didn’t as much ‘say’ it as ‘make the noise’. And it didn’t so much ‘make’ the noise as ‘detonate explosively, spraying black blood, bile and… other substances all over the place, but mostly over Louise’.  
  
Louise stared in blank shock.  
  
“Hmm. Well, that was unexpected,” Gnarl said, stepping out from behind his master. Apparently, the aged goblin could move remarkably quickly when it was called for. He hadn’t even been splattered.  
  
Louise pawed at her eyes, trying to clear them of ichor. It burned. And at the same time, she tried to throw up, because she had had her mouth open at the moment of blort-ness.  
  
“Probably an instability in the mix of the magic and the lifeforce,” Gnarl said casually. “Or possibly you’re simply not powerful enough to sustain it. Oh well. That’s something to remember for next time.”  
  
Louise chose to retch instead.  
  
“But still! Very promising!”  
  
Her Gauntlet chimed again. But it was not Cattleya.  
  
“ _Louise! Your evilness!_ ” came the unmistakeable voice of Jessica. “ _I need to talk to you! Like… right now! Right right right right now! It’s super important! It’s in fact the most important thing in the history of demonity ever! Ever! I’m heading right over! This is vital-life-or-death stuff!_ ”  
  
“I need a bath,” Louise managed, her voice quivering, on the edge of tears. “I really need a bath.”  
  
“Cool! See you in ten!”  
  
Louise blinked, trying to clear out her watering eyes. She couldn’t meet Jessica like this. She just couldn’t. But she couldn’t put it off if it was as important as the other girl said it was.  
  
There was only one thing she could do.  
  
“Gnarl,” she said, trying not to cry. “I… I am going to the baths. Have… have Jessica meet me there. I… I need to get clean.”  
  
It wasn’t like Jessica would see anything she hadn’t before. She was her tailor, after all, and had helped fit her undergarments. And that made it acceptable, as long as she kept everything strictly professional. Maybe… maybe she should even wear her dress in the bath, to try to get it clean too, but she hated to think what Jessica would say to the thought of the fabric being treated like that.  
  
“Excellent, your evilness!” Gnarl said happily. “Entertaining guests while in the bath is something that many previous masters and mistresses have done. Do you wish for various oils and scented unguents to be brought up for later?”  
  
Louise barely resisted the urge to kick the leering goblinoid, and for once wished that her Jester was present to take her anger out on. “No!” she said, trying to sound haughty and instead sounding desperate and nauseous. “Just… the stuff which makes lots of bubbles in the water. Lots and lots of it. And towels. And… and just make it so!”


	23. Party Up 5-2

“ _That idea was stupid. In fact, no, it was more than stupid. It was so unutterably stupid that I, as a well-bred lady, cannot describe the depths of its idiocy without using words which I should not even know, let alone say. I certainly would not imply that the only way that you could say something like that is that your father was, in fact, the village idiot, and so was your maternal grandfather. I’m talking about the same commoner there, incidentally. And that you, too, like to roll around in the mud like some degenerate pig, engaging in carnal activity with the peasantry. Of course, I would not dare to imply it, because it would be rude. Oh, if you think I’ve insulted your honour – which is worth about that of the dung you roll around in every day – all you have to do is challenge me to a duel, which I as a brave Tristainian maiden would be forced to reluctantly accept. Or are you too chicken?_ ”  
  
– Eleanore de la Vallière

* * *

“God and Founder, why did this have to happen now? Why, why, why? This is…” a clatter of bottles, “ooops! Well, it’s just as well the lid stayed on and… argh! Need to wash quickly, quickly, come on water! Come on! Come on! Why won’t you…”  
  
There was a splash. And then a scream.  
  
The two minions standing by the door stared in mild curiosity as something began to seep through the grand doorway to the bathhouse.  
  
The strangeness did not quite resemble frogspawn, nor did it resemble the frothing of a rabid dog, nor the horrors which come from the dark malevolence of an insane alchemist, though it drew inspiration from all three and more. One of the browns bent over, and gathered up some of the effervescing aerosol on a finger. And then licked it.  
  
“Bleargh!” it said. “That horrible! I no know what overlady do in there, but I not want to know.”  
  
“Oh no,” said the other one, “I no think that it can be that bad.” It picked at the foam. “I right!” the minion crowed. “It not that bad!” There was a pause. “It much, much worse! I think I go be sick now,” he said, and promptly was, into one of the ornate vases by the entrance to the bathroom.  
  
“It taste of… of sugar and spiceys and all things niceys,” the minion said, as it recovered.  
  
“Told you so,” said the first one. “What I thinks is, I thinks that…” and then it was silent, because it noticed that there were two figures which radiated dark energy in front of it.

* * *

There were bubbles.  
  
There were bubbles _everywhere_. Overflowing out of the bath, filling the air, covering her body and in her mouth. Louise spat out the latter party, and gasped for breath. In retrospect, she considered, as she groped blindly through the mess, she should probably have not used an entire bottle of alchemical bath foam.  
  
She should also probably have not dropped the other bottle in when she slipped over.  
  
“Overlady,” she heard one of the minions call out, voice muffled by the bubbles which surrounded and encompassed her, “you got guesties! The oversister and a demon are here to see you!”  
  
“Hey Louise!” Cattleya called out. “Are you decent? Well, I mean, decent in the dressed sense, not in the whole ‘trying to be a force of Evil’ and stuff like that. But still?”  
  
“Louise!” a devilishly attractive man interrupted. “Guess what guess what guess what guess what!”  
  
Louise swooned at the sound of the voice, sagging down through the bubbles. Her knees suddenly felt like very warm jelly. She used her new position on the ground to headbutt the floor, and felt somewhat better able to think. “What, Jessica?” she forced out. “And no, Catt, I… I think… I think we can talk through the door.”  
  
“Oh, that’s a really, really good idea,” the m… Jessica said. “You would not _believe_ how much trouble I had getting here. You want to know why my top is ripped? Yeah, I made the mistake of walking into the main room of the bar and… trust me, it’s a good thing Dad was there, because most of the women and some of the men in there got out of control. Well, okay, they started chasing me. And I had to grab an axe. It’s just I’ve never been so so so excited!”  
  
The overlady realised she had been drooling when she got bubbles in her mouth. She spat them out and tried to focus. “C-can you take a d-deep breath and calm down?” she asked. “Or write… um, a note and put it under the d-door?”  
  
“Try getting angry, Louise!” Cattleya contributed. “You’re adorable when you get angry!”  
  
“That’s not at all helpful, Catt!” Louise blazed. “Just because you’re not affected by it because of… uh, your condition doesn’t mean you get away with being unhelpful when it’s really hard to think! Jessica, say it quickly, and then we can talk when you’re calmer!”  
  
“Okay, okay!” Jessica said. “We’re both up for Cabal Awards! I’m up for Best Outfit, and you’re up for… get this straight… you’re up for both Best Newcomer and Best Halkeginian Villain! I’ve been reading the journals and they’re really, really impressed by your attack on the de la Vallière estate _and_ how you killed the comte de Mott! They say you’ve got a real chance for both of them… you’re not the favourite for either, but you could do really well!”  
  
“… this was your most important thing ever?” Louise said in disbelief. The bubbles were clearing, somewhat. Which was to say, when hugging a pillar she stood back up, she could see something above the level of the bubbles. Wading, relying on touch, she managed to clamber up onto one of the ornamental plinths and thanked the fact that she hadn’t been able to afford the statue she had been planning to put there.  
  
“It is! It’s so, so important! It’s the biggest day of my life ever ever ever!” Jessica squealed. She took a deep breath. “Oh my dark gods, this is such a big thing! We’re going to need new dresses and we’re going to be in front of all the journals so I’m going to have to make something as fancy and amazing looking for you as I possibly can because this is like… free advertising and this is the perfect way to expand on the range of the new aesthetic of ferrous feminine chic and go against the anthrognostic paradigm prevalent in the male-gaze orientated designs so common and so show my damn succubus cousins that they aren’t the be-all-and-end-all of female fashion and we can raise your profile and…” there was a thud.  
  
“She collapsed!” Cattleya said. “She wasn’t breathing, and then I remembered that people need to do that and they can’t talk and talk like I can… well, I mean, I need air to do the talking, but not in the same way that living people do.”  
  
“I’m all right!” Jessica called out. “I… I think I’ll just stay down here for a moment, because I’m a little woozy and also so excited that… well, my feet have turned into hooves and they’re sort of a pain to balance on.”  
  
Louise slapped herself on the side of the head, because Jessica was starting to sound handsome again, and in a horrified voice asked, “Your feet became hooves?”  
  
“Oh, you know how it is,” Jessica said.  
  
“I really don’t,” said Louise.  
  
"Oh, you know. When I get really, really excited, my demonic side comes to the fore. It's an incubus. Which is male. Most decidedly male. Take my word for it, because I _really_ don't want to come in here and show you. Although I could draw you a picture and push it under the door, if you really insist. Do you have a razor, by the way? I’ll need to shave my goatee."  
  
Louise's eyes widened. "That's quite alright!" she said as quickly as she could, and then mentally kicked herself. No, wait, didn’t she want the devilishly handsome man to come in here and ravish her and… wait a moment. Drat it! It was a tricksy thing, that aura. She would have to be on her guard. “I think you should go find a room to calm down in,” Louise said, “because I can’t think clearly at the moment. And I need to get dressed.”  
  
“Yes, please do,” Jessica begged. “I’ve had enough naked women throw themselves at me today, thank you very much.”  
  
“I’ll find a room for her,” Cattelya said. “Be back in a mo!”  
  
There was a pause. “Also,” Jessica added hesitantly. “Uh… your sister? Who just sprinted off?”  
  
“What about her?” Louise said.  
  
“You… uh, do know she’s a… well, a vamp, right? You know? With the way she acts and all that? Especially around me?”  
  
Louise rolled her eyes and sighed. And then she spat out a mouthful of foam which had snuck in with her sigh. “I had sort of worked that out, yes,” she said. “It was probably the blood drinking which was the clue. Or maybe the fangs. Or the room temperature body.” Well, it was the blood drinking, and it had taken her ten years to realise, Louise admitted to herself, but Jessica didn’t need to hear that. “Don’t worry; I’ll tell her that I’ll be so angry with her if she tries to drink your blood. Not that she’s likely to try, anyway – she tries her very hardest to not be a monster.”  
  
There was a long pause. “Yeah, sure,” Jessica said. “Just wanted to make sure you knew.”  
  
The overlady considered saying ‘How stupid would you have to be to miss that?’, but decided not to because it was all too likely that Cattleya would end up saying something like ‘Louise only found out a week or so ago’ and then it would be really embarrassing. So instead she said, “Okay. Well, I’m just in the bath at the moment because I had a rather messy alchemical accident, so…” she paused. Yes, she might as well get two birds with one stone here. “I actually wanted to commission something from you, for Silver Pentecost for Cattleya,” she said. “She needs something to wear for… you know, armour and the like, but it _needs_ to cover her face.”  
  
Jessica sounded cheerful when she said, “I can do that!”  
  
“And the rest of her body. That’s important too,” Louise added.  
  
“Oh, it’s going to be fine! Trust me on this! Actually, I’ll be showing what I already prepared as an idea for you to wear to the Cabal Awards! Trust me, you’re going to love it!”  
  
“How much flesh is exposed?” Louise asked warily.  
  
“Trust me,” Jessica said.  
  
Louise did not feel particularly inclined to do so. No one who used the words ‘Trust me’ that much was trustworthy. But as it stood, she couldn’t even find the exit, let alone her clothes, so she really couldn’t do much to stop her.

* * *

Jessica’s eyebrows fluted upwards at the sight of Cattleya’s bedroom, and then she shook her head. “This is not what I expected from a vampire’s bedroom,” she said, warily. “I’d have thought there would be more… like, skulls and coffins and the like.”  
  
Cattleya took a seat on the bed, smoothing down her skirts. “Oh, that’s a bit… gauche,” she said. “And rather depressing, I would say! I mean, everyone knows what’s inside someone’s head underneath the flesh and meat and things like that but I don’t think it’s really in good taste to show it off like that!” She patted the bed next to her.  
  
The hooved, horned, goateed Jessica chose to sit down on one of the plush chairs instead, crossing her legs in front of her. She was wearing strange trousers, almost like a man’s, but covered in pockets, and a seemingly-buttonless black shirt, short in the sleeves, with mystical writing in some demonic tongue on it. The oddness of her garb was only added to by the way that she had apparently a longer-sleeved shirt in a dull red on under her outer shirt – ah, it was a surcoat, Cattleya supposed.  
  
Jessica winced and rubbed her hooves, which were midway between that state and feet. “Okay, I think I’m calming down a bit,” she said, “and ow, ow, it always aches like hell when they turn back.”  
  
“Oh, I quite understand,” Cattleya said. “Turning back from a bat leaves me feeling all dizzy. And that’s not a state it’s helpful to be in when I’m trying put some clothes on.”  
  
“All right,” Jessica said, steepling her fingers and staring at Cattleya, “let’s talk clothes! So, actually, your sister wants me to make a set of armour slash sinister deeds of evil costume, but I’m going to start with what you’ll be wearing to the Cabal Awards. Which is a chance for me to show off what I can do, and get my work on the journals. And,” she looked Cattleya up and down, “… well, you certainly give me more to work with than Louise, poor girl.”  
  
“Yay!” Cattleya said happily. “So… what are you thinking? The face has to be covered, you know.”  
  
“Yes, your sister was clear about that,” Jessica said, stroking her goatee. “I need a shave. But… hmm.” She lowered her voice. “How do you feel about, you know… low cut dresses?”  
  
“Oh, I’m a big fan of them,” the other girl said, flashing a hint of fang. “I… I wanted to be presented at court, you know, but… well, that was never an option for me.”  
  
“Hmm,” Jessica said, producing paper and a pencil from her many pockets. “So… something regal, perhaps. Maybe… I think it really has to… no, your sister would probably throw lightning bolts at me if I tried to do that one. Shame.” She scrumpled it up, and threw it away. “Okay. Right. Basic principles. Style, sleek, predatory.”  
  
“I’d quite like to be able to run in it,” Cattelya contributed. “Or… well. Um, it’s more that things which tie my legs up get torn because I am rather strong and so if I can’t move properly fabric just tears.”  
  
“So noted.” Jessica sketched away. “Maybe a flared bit at the bottom. With… yes, concentric hoops to support it. Black, I think. Hmm. No, Black won’t stand out, too many people wear black to these things. Maybe… yes. Layered greys. Traceries of… silver. No, maybe… yes! Steel, instead. High collar, trimmed in violet. In fact, maybe… no, all violet won’t work with your hair colour! You’re just as hard to work with there as Louise!”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Cattleya said humbly, biting her lip. She went to her bedside table, and pulled out her own sketchbook. “Would any of these help?” she asked.  
  
Jessica’s eyes lit up with a non-metaphorical inner fire. “Oh, I like!” she said. “They’re watercolours, but… you have an eye for the flow of fabric! Who taught you?”  
  
“Oh, our parents were very insistent we know how to draw and paint like proper young ladies,” Cattleya said. “We had tutors. Well, I had tutors. Louise’s one quit because… she’s not very artistic. And also because she sort of blew up quite a bit of the orchard to try to avoid having to draw a tree.”  
  
“That one?” Jessica said, jabbing her finger at the watercolour of a woman in a black and silver robe trailing gauzy veils. “That’s a perfect starting point. Certain elements from the Mystic East which is totally in this year, but you’ve clearly mixed it with the court fashions of Tristain… it’s an interesting synthesis of thematic which subjugates the mysticism of other lands to the current neo-revivalism properties of modern regal styles!”  
  
“I drew it because I thought it was pretty,” Cattleya said brightly.  
  
“Well… mind if I keep this for working materials?” Jessica asked. “Right. Well, the next thing we have to do is work on your mainstay clothes for dark and sinister activities.”  
  
Cattleya flopped back onto her bed. “I suppose… black? And a mask.”  
  
“No no no no! No! That’s… honestly, that’s so trite!” Jessica said, her voice rising. “You’re a vampire! A queen of the night! The hunger that walks! The damned and screaming virgin, a walking metaphor of violation of the boundaries between right and wrong, life and death, and other such things!”  
  
“Um,” Cattleya said, raising a hand. “I think that’s sort of hurtful to put it like…”  
  
“You can’t just walk around in a black dress and a mask! I’d lose all the respect I got for Louise’s gorgeous new aesthetic if I let you do that!” Jessica snapped her fingers. “It’s all about the story,” she said, firmly. “Design-as-arete, design as excellence is fundamentally better in every way to designing things for mere functionality!” She sighted down her finger at Cattleya. “We want to be getting away from the Coptine elements in vampiric fashion; for one, you simply don’t have the skin tone for it. It assumes a certain level of tan, which just means that too many among the living dead end up painting themselves orange.” The dark-haired girl shuddered. “We certainly don’t want that. And the whole asp theme? It’s had its day! We need a revision!”  
  
“Wolves?” Cattleya suggested. “I do like my puppies… oh, no, but it would be cruel to kill them and skin them. Maybe if one of them died of old age…”  
  
“No, no, no.” Jessica’s tone was adamant. “You don’t want be a vampire caught wearing wolf-fur. You’ll get the protesters right over you, and they can turn into three metre tall wolf-men with a hair-trigger temper. Not worth it.” She framed Cattleya with her thumbs and index fingers. “You have very much an hourglass noblewoman’s build,” she said, clinically, “so it’s going to be completely different designing for you than it is for Louise.”  
  
“Hey!” the sinister sister of the overlady of dark malevolence protested, pouting.  
  
“Look, I’ve done your sister’s measurements and fitted her armour. I know these things. Louise needs things which enhances her figure and… well, makes her look like less of a sixteen year old girl and more of a figure of dark and dreadful feminine majesty. Cattleya, you’re going to need something which simultaneously overtly conceals and subtly flaunts your curves. You’re too curvy for the obvious choices to hang properly, your hips are going to make it a nightmare to get a close-fitting dress working, and if we’re to reject the Coptine style… hmm. Are you sure you don’t have any succubus in you? Maybe it’s a vampire thing. I’m going to need sketches! And measurements!”

* * *

Perched on her plinth above the sea of bubbles, Louise glared at the morass which surrounded her island of tranquillity.  
  
They weren’t going away.  
  
She frowned at them. It had no effect. Well, she could call for the minions, but as it stood, she had no clothes apart from the gauntlet and… no, she wasn’t calling for the minions. Oh, and bubbles probably counted as water so she suspected strongly that they would drown in it. Even if it took them some thought to work out _how_ to do it, they would manage it.  
  
Well, she was just going to have to wait here until the bubbles went down.  
  
Or… she could set them on fire. Or even better, _explode_ the bubbles out of the way…

* * *

Things were not going well in the debate over vampiric fashion.  
  
“Look, I am certainly not going to go outside the palette malificarum,” Jessica said, firmly. “If you want something with all those bright colours on them, then you’re going to have to go as an evil clown. Evil clowns are the only people who are allowed to mix such things together. Do you want to be an evil clown? Do you think that would be funny?”  
  
“No,” Cattleya conceded. “I think clowns are scary.”  
  
“Good, then don’t try to get me to work such colours into things.” Jessica took a deep breath. “That having been said – and don’t try to talk me out of it when I say what I’m about to say – your complexion and hair is better suited for washed out colours. Hmm. Something ophelian? A drowned woman, betrayed by her lover, returned from beyond the grave… eternally hungry and bitter? Oh, I like that. That suggests an uxorian theme, which has the advantage of history while having been out of style long enough that it isn’t passé to use it. Oh, that’s very nice indeed.”  
  
Cattleya perked up. “I am single, you know,” she said. “My parents broke off my marriage when this happened to me.”  
  
“Excellent! It weaves in hints of the truth! Everyone loves a good vampire tragedy! So…” Jessica’s shadow flowed around her, pooling and hanging off her hands. Then she paused. “Oh shit!” she said, shifting uncomfortably and her hands going to the back of her neck. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”  
  
“Uh… what’s the matter?” Cattleya asked, concern flashing over her face. “And… um, do you have to sw…”  
  
“… my wings have got caught up in my breastband,” the dark-haired girl admitted. “I just tried to unfold them so I could do demonic magic more easily and and…” she bit her lip, as she tried to adjust the back of her strange shirt, “… okay, got it,” she said, the stubby bat-like shadowy wings unfolding from the slits in the back. “They’re at a bloody inconvenient size; not big enough to support me, but still there. I thought my new design would fix that, but it’s still catching! It’s bloody annoying, and it’s not like I’m going to use the succubus solution,” she muttered. “I need the support.”  
  
“Oh, don’t _talk_ to me about transformation and clothes problems,” Cattleya said cheerfully. “When I just go monster-y, it’s fine, because that’s mostly just my hands and face, but anything more than that? When I go tiny bat, owl or normal wolf, I get caught up in the dress and can’t get things off because… well, no hands, and when I go giant bat or wolf, I just ruin clothes. Clothes don’t track with you, and it’s a pain!”  
  
Jessica grinned. “Oh, I can solve that,” she said. “That’s an embuggerance for pretty much any shapeshifter, so I know a bunch of various tricks to solve it.”  
  
“You do?” Cattleya asked, happily. “Oh, that’d be wonderful! It’d mean I wouldn’t have to basically take all my clothes off before transforming and I wouldn’t have to get dressed afterwards!” She pouted. “According to the books, there are ways to learn how to take your clothes with you – or make clothes from blood or something like that – but I couldn’t get any of them working and I didn’t exactly have much room to practice back home because I sort of technically wasn’t meant to be playing around with that sort of thing.”  
  
“Clothes from blood…” Jessica said, slowly. “Yes! That’s it! Wonderful!” She leapt to her feet and raised her hands, her shadow rising up over her.  
  
When the transformation was complete, it revealed a scarlet wedding dress, long and flowing and volumous. Carefully placed slits ensued ease of movement, while layers of gauzy crimson fabric meant that any flesh could only be seen as through a sanguine mist. The carefully designed veil left the girl’s lips visible, but underneath it a skull-like ball mask concealed most of her features.  
  
Cattleya squealed in joy, and leapt over to snatch Jessica up in hug. “It’s gorgeous! And you managed to…” she sniffed, “… well, I’ve wanted to wear a wedding dress for a long time. My mother looks so pretty in her wedding painting! You can barely see that she’s pregnant at all! And the red looks delicious!”  
  
“… Karin of the Heavy Wind, already… never mind,” Jessica said, interested despite herself. “And please let go, I need to breath.” Gratefully, she took a breath, and then groaned. “Ah, but there’s a problem with that kind of red,” Jessica said, her face falling. “I’d love to use it, I really would. It’s _gorgeous_. But it requires strange and hard to find alchemical reagents to make.”  
  
“Oh,” Cattleya said, sadly. “But it’s so pretty.”  
  
“I know! I really like it; my favourite t-shirt is that colour. I got that one from that trip Dad took me to Los Diablos. That’s where we’ll have to be going to get to Cabal Awards, because they’re in Profaneglade.”  
  
“You have a shirt just for wearing when you drink tea? That’s a really good idea! Well, I mean, I already sort of have one, but it’s for blood, not tea, and that’s because it’s a pain to get blood of out things! But you should suggest it to Louise, who’s always been a bit clumsy!”  
  
Jessica blinked heavily, went to say something, and chose not to. “Man, I always keep on forgetting how strange surface culture can be,” she said to herself. “But yeah, we have a problem. I really don’t think we can get our hands on the ingredients before the deadline. I wonder if I could trick some heroes into finding it for me by sitting in the Charming Fairies wearing a dark hooded robe and talking about a super-important quest needed to stop something dreadful?” she said, mostly to herself.  
  
“Maybe I can find it for you!” Cattelya said, enthusiastically. “After all, I am a vampire!” She smiled, and sidled closer to Jessica, who sidled away. “I’d love to get it for you,” she said.  
  
“It’s a nice idea,” Jessica said diplomatically, “but I don’t think it would work. How can I get that much fresh unicorn blood for the dye?”  
  
Cattleya grinned, showing rather too much fang. “I’m sure we could work something out,” she said. “Trust me.” And then she paused. “Louise,” she said, mystified as she stared at the soot-blackened figure wrapped in a blackened towel. “Is that you?”  
  
“Don’t. Even. Ask,” the dark and evil overlady of dark evilness commanded, stomping off to her room to seek out the old tub. “Minions! Clean up the bathroom! Don’t drown! And put out the fires!”

* * *

Wrapped in midnight black fluffy dressing gown embroidered with demonic runes and skulls – there had been certain compromises in its design – Louise stalked her way to her sister’s room. She adjusted the towel around her hair, and then let herself in, to find her sister and Jessica going over a thick book. On closer inspection, the book revealed itself to actually be a demonic journal, and the two were looking at pictures of clothing.  
  
“So,” asked Cattleya, raising her head, “what happened?”  
  
She received a glowing-eyed glare in response. “I told you not to ask,” Louise snapped.  
  
“You smell of… well, it’s kind of blood, but it’s the worst, blandest, slightly sourest blood ever! And you also smell of Evil, explosions, and also Evil explosions. What on earth did you do?”  
  
“Which bit about not asking didn’t make sense?” Louise demanded, sulking. Even being wrapped up in her sister’s cooling embrace did not remove the pout, especially when she saw the wrinkled nose. “There was an alchemical accident, all r-right! In fact, there were two of them!”  
  
“See,” Cattleya said, patting Louise’s head, “that wasn’t so hard, was it?”  
  
“Not my fault,” Louise muttered. “Stupid Gnarl. And stupid bubbles.”  
  
Jessica coughed. “Much as I hate to break this up,” she began.  
  
“Have you calmed down fully?” Louise demanded of her.  
  
“Well, mostly,” Jessica admitted. “I still need to shave, but that’s just something that happens. But still! I still need to do the organising stuff! Okay! Listen up! This is really, really important. Louise, you have one guest ticket, and I already assumed you’d want to give it to your sister!”  
  
“Ahem,” Gnarl said, stepping out from behind the door frame.  
  
All three girls jumped. “How long were you there?” Louise demanded of him.  
  
“I do believe as your loyal vizier and contact with the Abyss, I should be attending,” Gnarl pointed out. “And I am an expert at mingling at these social events, and will be able to obtain many free titbits of information and also free drinks. It’ll be a nice occasion to get the old suit out of the wardrobe.”  
  
Louise glared at him. He stared back calmly. He was right, curse him. He would be more useful to her than Cattleya would… and Cattleya would also be safer back at the tower, and wouldn’t risk giving away her identity or anything like that.  
  
Jessica sucked in a breath. “Well… I don’t think my Dad will want to go, because he’s still persona non gratis among certain circles,” she admitted, “so… if he isn’t going, I guess you can come as my guest if you’re going to be showing off one of my designs. Don’t get any funny ideas,” she warned Cattleya.  
  
“Yes,” Louise agreed, “Catt, you are expressly forbidden from trying to drink Jessica’s blood! I mean it!” This show of authority was slightly ruined by the squeal of ‘So cute!’ it produced in her sister.  
  
“Thank you,” Jessica said diplomatically. “You really aren’t going to see anything of me because we have to be in Los Diablos by the start of the Silver Pentagram… I mean, Pentecost, so I’m going to basically have to be up all the time to get everything finished. But I’ll meet you here, before I summon the portal there. Louise, the thing I have designed for you is basically an armoured skirt for your armour. It’ll slow you down a bit, but it’s more protective and it should be something impressive for the journals. And yes, you are still wearing the normal armour under it.”  
  
Louise blinked. That was… actually fairly sensible. “Okay,” she said.  
  
“Well… okay. Since hell has frozen over, you should pack something warm,” Jessica continued.  
  
“Wait,” Louise said. “Hell is frozen over? Isn't that a bad... a good... a strange-things-are-happening sign? Like... is something weird going on?”  
  
Jessica stared at Louise, eyes narrowed. “... are you being serious?” she asked.  
  
Louise blinked. “I thought I was,” she said.  
  
“Of _course_ hell is frozen over,” Jessica said. “It's winter. That's how you know it's winter. It gets cold.”  
  
“... but it was all hot and smoky last time I visited the Abyss,” Louise protested.  
  
“Of course it was. That was be-cause it was what we tech-nic-ally call sum-mer,” Jessica said, talking slowly as if explaining something to a slow child. “In win-ter it is cold. But still smoke-y.”  
  
“You can stop talking like that, you know,” Louise snapped. “I didn't get a-any exposure to.... to books on the climate of the Abyss or anything growing up, okay!”  
  
Cattleya did. “I did!” she said. “It was in one of Father's books on preparing raids into the Abyss and the need to wrap up warm if you're going in the winter months! And also how you have to beware the blue flames which burn cold!”  
  
“Oh yes, that's a good point,” Jessica said. “Things that protect you from hotfire won't help you against coldfire. They're different. So... like, tell your red minions not to think they won't die if they go in it.”  
  
“Yessss,” Cattleya said, grinning, pumping her fist. “Fire that isn't burny fire! I'm not weak against that! Ah ha ha ha ha!” She coughed, in an embarrassed manner. “I'm so dreadfully sorry,” she apologised. “That was undignified. But still, do you know a way to trap it? I haven't managed to get magelights set up and so there's open fires in far, far too many places in this tower for my personal comfort! It's really scary! And I'm thinking some nice blue coldfire would set off our skin tones nicely, little sis.”  
  
“We're getting off topic, Catt,” Louise said warningly.  
  
Jessica stared at something on her wrist. “And oh my dark gods, I was meant to be meeting my supplier for demonic iron five minutes ago, I really do have to dash. Louise, it was lovely to see you again, and Cattleya, it was… interesting. See you soon! Make sure you’re ready for the awards! I mean it! Really!” And with that said, she darted out.  
  
“I will see her out,” Gnarl said, following the departing half-demon and leaving the two sisters alone.  
  
“I like her,” Cattleya said. “She’s cute, especially when she’s not being all male-demony. And adorably manic, even if she is a little strange. But I suppose with the family background she mentioned, and how her mother left her, it’s natural for her to not be normal. She doesn’t have the advantage of a stable family background, like us.”  
  
Louise glanced at Cattleya. “Was that supposed to be a joke?” she asked her sister.  
  
“I beg your pardon?”


	24. Party Up 5-3

_“Oooh, you know what them elves is up to? See, every year, right, there be a secret meetin’ of elves and all sorts of other evil creatures, where they be doin’ their secret plottin’ and the like. And they drink lots of expensive drinkies an’ eat those little bits of cheese on sticks. It was in that secret meetin’ that they came up with the plan to shoot moi ‘erd of ‘orses with a burning ray! From space! I don’t reckon to know what stuff they be doing or why they be doin’ it, though. Who knows what them evil sorts get up to?”_   
  
–  Ol’ Phil, uneducated horse herder

* * *

The portal was a malignant tumour on the very fabric of the world, sanguine colours swirling within the red-veined rock which surrounded it. Louise rubbed her hands together, making a grating metallic noise, and stamped her feet to keep warm. Beside her, Cattleya stood placidly, holding a parasol and wearing a dark hooded robe and mask. Well, Louise thought her older sister was being placid. It was somewhat hard to tell because of the aforementioned mask.   
  
She tried to ignore the clattering sound from their baggage. She had tried her very best to avoid putting anything breakable in there, knowing that it would pass through the hands of minions, but she wasn’t sure that Cattleya had listened to her warnings. And she strongly suspected that Jessica hadn’t.  
  
“Oh, ma petit,” she heard Scarron’s distinctive voice coming closer. There was a honking, as the dethroned prince of the incubi blew his nose. “You must promise to call me as soon as you get there so I know you are safe, and you are not to go walking around any of the dangerous areas of the city! You must promise me that!”  
  
“Dad! You’re embarrassing me in front of…”  
  
“I don’t care! I’m so proud of you getting a nomination like this! And I’ll be proud of you whether you win or not! And I’m sure your mother would…” Scarron fell awkwardly silent. “Well, she’d approve of you winning things in general as long as you didn’t mention what it was that you were winning. If she wasn’t an unfaithful cheap Heroic hussy who enslaved me before running off and abandoning you, she would support you too!”  
  
There was a silence. “Well, I’ll call you as soon as we get to the hotel,” Jessica said, a little too brightly. The girl sloped up to the waiting sister, dressed this time in some kind of strange striped black-and-white long-sleeved shirt without a collar. At least she was wearing a skirt this time, even if her boots seemed to be impractically long. “Dads, eh?” she said to them. “They fuss so much about you spending time away from home.”  
  
“Father always seemed to be quite happy about me going to the Academy,” Louise said. “We all go there… well, uh, present company excluded.”  
  
“Quite. Oh, I know the feeling,” said Cattleya. “Mother and Father get so antsy when I’m out of the house! Overprotective parents just don’t want to let you out of their eyes.”  
  
“… yeah, sure,” Jessica said, shooting a glance at Cattleya out of the corner of her eye. “Anyway,” she dug around in her bag, “… here’s your tickets.”  
  
Louise stared at the ancient-looking piece of black stone, carven with blasphemous occult sigils. She could feel the malevolence radiating off it. It felt sort of like a newborn kitten in her hand.   
  
Mind you, cats had always liked her. She’d sort of hoped she would summon one. She would have been perfectly fine with a cat. It wouldn’t have even needed to have fur as dark as the midnight sky; a bog-standard tabby would have been lovely enough. Alas, it was not to be. And sadly, minions were nowhere near as nice as cats when they tried to jump onto her lap while she was sitting on her chair-which-was-honestly-not-a-throne-because-to-proclaim-herself-as-a-royal-figure-would-be-treason.   
  
She had been forced to give the Jester such a kicking for doing that. Well, alright, she hadn’t been _forced_ , but she had done so anyway.  
  
“Anyway, your minions count as hand luggage,” Jessica said cheerfully, “so that’s good.”  
  
“I hope I don’t,” Gnarl said, emerging from behind the baggage pile. “I have no intention of travelling in the interstitial vortex for this.”  
  
“It does only take seconds,” Jessica pointed out, putting her bag back on, and adjusting the straps. “We ready?”  
  
“It is the principle of the thing,” the elderly minion said. “And yes. Come on, you scum-suckers,” he told the minions laden down with the bags. “Hurry up.”  
  
With a series of cheers and the occasional clatter, the bags were carried through. Cattleya drew in a worried breath. “It… looks a lot like fire,” she said nervously.  
  
“Oh, it’s not real fire. It’s just the agonised inflammation of time and space,” Jessica said.  
  
“But does it burn?”  
  
“Only if you’re made of time and-slash-or space.” Jessica tapped her feet. “Come on, we have to check in and I want to look around the stores before we have to get changed for this evening. Let’s go!” And with that said, she stepped into the flaming portal.  
  
“I don’t think I can do it,” Cattleya said, a hint of fang showing as she bit her lip.  
  
“Sure you can, Catt,” Louise said soothingly. “Look… I’ll hold your hand. And go first. Just close your eyes and don’t think too hard about it.” Trying to suppress her own nervousness, the overlady stepped through, half-dragging her sister.  
  
The first thing that hit her was the smoke. The second was the cold. Jessica clearly had not been joking when she told them to wrap up warmly. But that was a lesser thing, compared to the way that Louise was now trying to hack out her lungs. She collapsed to her knees, gasping for air, her eyes streaming. The yellow-brown fog around her stunk of tar and steel and other, worse things.  
  
“Founder, I bet it would be horrible if I actually had to breathe!” Cattleya said. “Are you alright?”  
  
“Do I look alright?” was what Louise tried to say, but its passage from her throat was somewhat obstructed by the coughing. Something was slid over her face, tied up at the back of her helmet, and Louise gratefully drew in a breath through the filtering fabric… no, it was some kind of paper over her mouth and nose. She turned and through her watering eyes looked up at Jessica, who had a similar black piece of paper marked with a demonic sigil on it covering her lower face.  
  
“My wickedness, it’s bad this year,” Jessica said, wearing one of the paper mask things over her own face. “I mean, I know it usually gets worse in the winter months, but this is horrible.” She coughed, her own eyes streaming. “I’m half-demon and it’s really unpleasant for me; I can’t imagine how it is for you.”  
  
“Horrible,” Louise managed, pathetically grateful for the paper mask which was all which was protecting her from the all-encompassing smog.  
  
“Ah, can you smell the Evil in the air? Positively vile! I always do like my visits to Los Diablos,” Gnarl said, happily, his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his robe. “I should be able to meet up with a few contacts once you get to the hotel, even before the ceremony.”  
  
“How can you stand this?” Louise asked, staring down at her advisor.  
  
Gnarl sniffed. “Stand what?” he asked, and shrugged. “Behold! Upon yonder hills is the sign of the devils! A sign of the Evil of this place!”  
  
In great fiery letters, a burning brand upon the stark hillside, was written,   


**PROFANEGLADE**

“Pretty Evil sign, right?” said Gnarl.   
  
Louise did have to agree, the giant burning letters written across an entire hillside overlooking the city of demons probably did qualify as an evil sign.  
  
“I will go supervise the little dears as they load the bags into the carriage,” he added, hobbling off at an impressive rate.  
  
The overlady tried not to breathe as she looked around. All she could make out through the smog and her own watering eyes of the city itself was the impression of towering, elaborate spires rising over an interminable wasteland of squat structures. The bleating of the demonic races and the constant roar of beasts and blowing of horns was a background refrain which cut its way through even the smog. Blue fire cast mad shadows from the great braziers which lined the streets, drawing in the warmth and leaving the twisted faces she could see cast in a strange light. And everywhere, even through the chill, she could feel the heat of the malevolence of this place.  
  
This city of demons, Los Diablos, dwarfed Bruxelles. Her parents’ estate could be lost in its sprawl. The streets screamed in the cold, countless chariots and carriages pulled by all manner of monsters who drooled fire and fumes from their maws clattering over the icy surfaces. She could even hear what could only be a battle, the crackle and snap of musketfire in the distance. She felt very, very small here.  
  
Even smaller than usual.  
  
“I don’t like this place,” she said softly, mostly to herself.  
  
Jessica patted her on the shoulder. “I know the smoke is pretty bad here,” she said failing to read the emotions of someone whose only exposed flesh were the glowing eyes peeking out from over the top of the mask, “but don’t worry. It gets pumped away from the rich areas, like the area around Profaneglade. You won’t be choking in the ceremony. It’s just really bad around the portalplace.”  
  
“That’s… that’s better,” Louise said. She looked around again. “Why’s it like this, anyway? I mean, it was smoky around the Charming Fairies, but… this is horrible.”  
  
“Well, some of the unnatural philosophers in the journals say that the smoke is making the Abyss rise, and with time it will tear through the ground, casting down the overworld and bringing about the ultimate triumph of Evil,” Jessica said. “And that therefore it’s our duty to burn as many souls as possible and take payment in windstones and burn them and other such things. But I don’t think it’s true; I mean, there’s quite a controversy about that, and there are certainly unnatural philosophers who say that it’s just a natural cycle based on… you know, like, volcanos and stuff, and that in time the smoke will clear and we shouldn’t ruin the economy by burning lots of souls for something which won’t help the cause of Evil in the long run. And I’m pretty sure there’s no way we could be making all this smoke, so something else has to be playing a role, right?”  
  
Louise stared at her. “That didn’t actually answer…” she began, but was interrupted by a minion-festooned, demon-driven carriage rolling up, pulled by something black and bat-winged and horrible.  
  
“Oh, that’s nice,” Cattleya said admiringly. “Really long, and… who’s a good demon-horse, then? I might just have a sugar lump in my pocket for…”  
  
“We can fuss over the demon-horses later,” Louise said firmly. “For now, can we just get out of the smoke?”  
  
“Yes, we’re all going to need baths before I’ll even think of letting you near the dresses!” Jessica said stridently. “Oh yes, I have a few things I meant to say. Firstly, you need to thank the Cabal if you win. Really, really, don’t forget this. It’s a big deal. If you don’t thank them, they take it as a personal insult. And ever since the King of Abyss was overthrown and bound into my maternal grandfather, the Cabal basically runs the Abyss. Don’t get them angry. Really, really, really don’t. So, for more minor things…”

* * *

The hotel itself was a towering pinnacle of black volcanic stone, rising high above the sprawling city. The three girls each had rooms which were the very lap of decadent, demonic luxury. And then they went to bathe together and prepare themselves for the evening, which involved giggling in a state that a hypothetical voyeur – who would of course have needed to be a terrible person – may well have had some interest in observing.  
  
However, the only giggling from Gnarl’s room was Fettid’s mad titter, as the minion methodically stabbed a piece of fruit. And although the elderly goblinoid’s room had started off just as luxurious as the others, it had now contained multiple minions for several minutes and thus would require, at the very least, a very good airing.   
  
And for all the fruit to be replaced and the coolbox to be refilled and the walls to be repainted.  
  
“I was going to be eating that,” Igni whined, spinning a ball of fire on his finger. “Why you gots to mush it, eh? What is you, stoopider?”  
  
Fettid grinned. “For the noise of stabbiness. Duh.”  
  
The violence started shortly afterwards.  
  
After a while, Gnarl released his crystal ball, and looked up to see Maggat holding the red and the green by their heads, slamming the two skulls together. It was widely agreed among minionkind that such a form of punishment was probably the mildest form of reprimand they could give. After all, the skull was the thickest bone in the minion body. Settling down in the high-backed chair by the window, the old minion stroked his goatee and stared out over the smog.  
  
“I have made my calls,” he announced, “and made a few arrangements. I therefore will need a small team to engage in a raid on a high value target.”  
  
Fettid picked herself off the lush carpet, and rubbed her head resentfully. “Oooh! Ooooh! Me!”  
  
Gnarl stroked his goatee. “This mission,” he began, “will require many things. It requires sneakiness!”  
  
There was a cheer from the other minions.  
  
“It will require you to risk your own double-death. It will require total loyalty to the overlady. It will require cunning and brutality in the appropriate amounts.”  
  
“We can totes do that,” one of the reds chirped up.  
  
“And it will require a basic level of literacy and the ability to write.”  
  
Some of the minions got as far as nodding their heads before the words sank in and they recoiled in horror. One or two of the younger ones actually shrieked.  
  
“But Gnarl,” breathed a wide-eyed blue, “you is never going on no raidings no more! And without you, how is the knowingness of the tricksy paper words to be known?”  
  
There was a cough from Maxy, who was grinning like… well, like a minion. “Ha!” he crowed. “You so stoopid! You say I waste my time learning to read, but it help us because I read on how vampies are all melon-dramas and that help us save overlady, and now you need me! A ha ha ha! And because you is needing me, I no can be stabbed at all!”  
  
“I can read too!” Scyl said dreamily. “Like the wall there! It says ‘C-A-T’. Cat.”  
  
Maxy stared at the wall. So did Gnarl. “Nope. It not say anything on the wall,” the brown said, glaring. “There are no letters there at all. So I cannot do the putting together of the letters when there is no letters to put together. You can’t read letters what are not there, stoopid.”  
  
“I can,” Scyl pointed out.   
  
“That no is reading! That just is putting letters there and claiming that they is wordies!”  
  
Gnarl cleared his throat. “That is good. In that case,” he put one hand into a pocket, and withdrew some strange stone talismans, hanging from red ribbons. “The minions which will go on the mission must wear these. And there will need to be a preliminary pillaging. You will require suits for this, and I do believe suits intended for imps will fit you.”  
  
Fettid raised a hand.  
  
“What is it?” Gnarl asked.  
  
“Is dressies okay instead of suities?” the green asked.  
  
“No,” Gnarl said promptly. “That is not appropriate.”  
  
Fettid’s face fell.  
  
“For the disguises to work, you would require a maid’s uniform,” Gnarl continued.  
  
The green’s smile was a thing of terrible malevolence.

* * *

And it was now dark. Or rather, it was as dark as it ever got in the city of demons. Whatever sun this hellish realm had was no longer above the smogs and fumes, but now those aforementioned clouds caught the light of the fires of the city below and cast it back down. The red and blue of the two kinds of fire mixed in the clouds to produce a nauseating purple, which cast all features in a strange light.  
  
Over the great stone edifice where the Cabal Awards were being held, explosions tore up the sky. Vile demonic spells were hurled with dreadful abandon at the heavens, in a show of profound decadence. Dark sorcerers competed to see who could best impress the onlookers, for to do well at this would guarantee contracts and offers of hire from the dark lords and demon princes who attended such gatherings.  
  
“It’s really a wonderful showing for the demonstrations; they’ve really outdone themselves this year,” reported the blonde succubus standing in front of a magic mirror, speaking to the enchanted object. “Of course, the warlocks and rogue mages aren’t the only ones who have outdone themselves. Yes, this is the nine hundred and seventh Cabal Awards, and I have to say, the competition is especially fierce this year. Anyone who is, was, and even some who will be anyone has turned out for this! Oh my wickedness, the outfits look gorgeous! The coaches and malevolent riding beasts are stacked as far as the eye can see, but… yes, one of the nominees is apparently nearly here!”  
  
In a clattering of wings, a long, black-scaled serpentine dragon landed at the end of the blood-coloured carpet which led to the main structure. Armoured faceless guards helped the young man in the black robe off his dragon, and, dragon-headed steel staff in hand, he began to walk.  
  
“Yes, it’s Emperor Lee himself, and I have to say, he’s looking particularly villainous for this, his first Cabal Award. He’s burst onto the scene like a necromantic death spell into a helpless village, and in the last year alone murdered the old Cathayan vizier, took his place, murdered the emperor of Cathay, usurped his throne and is now leading his dragon-hordes against Ind. He’s the hot favourite for no less than three separate awards, including Best Newcomer – not surprising, really – and up for five more. And I have to say, he really pulls off that robe. A classic example of Vizier-chic, but with imperial overtones which are certainly eye-grabbing. And I am loving that staff! Mmm!  
  
“And who’s up next? Oh, it’s Acedia!” The succubus sniffed, taking in the grey-skinned, washed-out demoness, in a short back cocktail dress. “I have to say, she’s looking distinctly tired. Critics have panned her recent efforts… she’s very much been sitting back on her laurels, waiting for others to damn themselves. That’s not the sort of thing which catches the eye of the Cabal, and though she’s up for Best Long-Term Plan, the odds are not looking hopeful for her.”  
  
The blonde took the chance while another carriage made its way up to sip from her glass of water. One elaborately plucked eyebrow quirked at the sight of the newest arrivals; a heavily armoured figure in steel plate, a half-masked figure in black and red, a dark-haired woman in a low-cut evening gown, and a goblin in a waistcoat with long tails. The goblin also had a hat shaped slightly like an inverted mushroom.  
  
“And they’re coming close together, our new contenders!” the blonde said, a slightly malicious grin sneaking onto her face. “In any other year, we’d be lucky to see these kinds of accomplishments, but I don’t envy the Cabal for having to choose. Here we have the Overlady of the North, the Steel Maiden, wearing her signature plate. Although she’s added a daring new armoured skirt to the ensemble, which reinforces the paradoxical and hitherto almost unseen mix of femininity and protection. She’s the dark horse in this race, and some people say she’d need a dark miracle to win when up against the competition of Emperor Lee or Shafeela, but… well, she has the Gnarl on her side, who’s emerged from almost eighty years of silence as her advisor. Yes, the Steel Maiden is an outsider, but she’s one to watch!  
  
“Accompanying her is the mysterious Carmine Countess, who there have been all sorts of tales and rumours about in the past few weeks. Some say she feeds only off unicorn blood; others that she is the heir to the dark power of the Bloody Duke, Louis de la Vallière himself. No one knows who’s saying that ‘some say’, but I know what I say and I have to say that she’s wearing a gorgeous black number which seems to blend Cathayian styles with Tristainian. She could have been a little more daring, what with that figure, and I wish I could see that face, but… ooh, there’s something about a woman who’s wearing a mask like that which makes her a challenge.”   
  
The succubus licked her lips. “Yes, a challenge indeed. And… okay, yes, I’ll move on,” she said, to frantic gestures from someone standing behind the magic mirrors, a subtle sneer twisting her lips. “Oh, and there’s J’eszika va S'kareryeon with them, who’s behind both dresses. Looking sort of podgy there. Could probably do with losing some weight, and looking distinctly masculine. Not very attractive at all. She might be able to design passable dresses, but I have to say, it’s the others who are making things work for them. Must be all the human blood in her, and not in a healthy, vampiric way.”  
  
Walking down the blood-red carpet, which squelched slightly under foot, Louise tried not to show how terrified she was that the centre of attention of hundreds of demons and other evil beings. The commentary which was coming from… somewhere, she wasn’t exactly sure, wasn’t helping matters either. Beside her, she could feel Jessica shaking.  
  
“Don’t be scared,” she breathed, trying not to move her lips.  
  
“I’m not scared,” the other girl breathed back. “I’m angry. Really angry. The one doing the commentary… that’s Izah’belya. One of my cousins. On Dad’s side. I _hate_ her. And am trying to stay calm. She’s somehow both vapid and emptyheaded and a treacherous stoat who… she stole Monsieur Saturnine from me!”  
  
Louise blinked. “Your boyfriend?”  
  
“One of my dolls when I was little,” Jessica muttered. “Thrice-blessed succubus cousins who take things from you because they know it’ll make you upset and… have to stay calm.” She took a deep breath. “Can’t listen to her. Remember, wave at the audience, but keep on moving. We’ll get past her and her not-very-veiled insults.”

* * *

“Dah daran-dah dan dan dan. Dah daran-dah dan dan dan. Do do, do do, do do-oh! Do doroh do, duu-uu-oo! Dah daran-dah, d…”  
  
“Could you shut it?” Maggat hissed at Scyl. “We is sneakin’ here.”  
  
“An’ this is sneakin’ music,” Scyl countered, calmly.  
  
“Actually, we is not sneaking,” Fettid contributed. “If we was sneakin’, we would be wearin’ our normal stuff an’ we would be in the air carrying thingies and stayin’ in the shadows and watchin’ out for those demony eye thingies which are above doors and watchin’ for people who is not meant to be here. We is dissing guys here.”  
  
Maxy shot an annoyed glare at Fettid. “And if we is disguised, why you cut the throat of this imp?” he said, pointing down at the blood-soaked imp corpse the five minions had dragged into one of the bathrooms.  
  
“Because I already crush airway, but that not kill and hornys get better afterwards and then he raise the alarm,” Fettid said cheerfully. “And I only crush airway because he go ‘wait, you is not impies, you is… goblins! Gua… argle argle wheeze wheeze’ and then there was a wet bubblin’ noise because I cut throat then.” The minion patted the front of her apron. “I like this thing!” she said cheerfully. “It stop blood getting on me, and it also let me hide more knifeys under it.”  
  
Maggat crossed his arms. “Okay, so maybe we is sneakin’ while we hide the body, but then when we hide body, we go back to dissing guys, ‘kay?” he said. “We go to some lengths to get these disguises so we is dressed up as fancy backstage butlery stuff or whatever – I is not knowing what the hornies do because they not have minions and so they is worse – and Gnarl might be…” Maggat gulped, “… shark-astic with us if we not do this proper.”  
  
“I gots a plan,” Scyl said suddenly, “an’ it’s a doozy.”  
  
“What are a doozy?” Igni asked.  
  
“Something what this plan is,” the blue said. “Right. We is trying to get to the special room of one of the suckybuses, right? And we got a body here. So all we gots to do is prettify this body and then we can say he’s all sleepy and he’s there for her and it’s a present from someone who wants to get kissy with her and then we can be tricksy like that.”  
  
There was silence.  
  
“That are a very stupid plan,” Maggat said, eventually. “Look, let’s just go in through the air things up there. We is almost there anyway.”  
  
And indeed, within minutes, the ventilation shaft in the roof of the target room was being pried up, and the minions were dropping down into the boudoir of the succubus with cat-like stealth.  
  
“Ooh, string!” declared Igni, grabbing a ball of cord made from the hair of bloodily sacrificed human virgins, and stuffing it into his rucksack. “This are going to be real useful for funsies, and also… uh, what else, uh, tying stuff up!”  
  
Maxy cleared his throat. “Ahem. We no is meant to be looting here. Gnarl was very clear ‘bout that. We no can loot in the room. We gotta get in and out, sneaky like.” He looked around the lush room, taking in the extravagant tapestries of groups of demons, many of whom were holding things which were either torture devices, or strange and arcane musical instruments. Eventually, his eyes eyes settled on a mirror surrounded by tiny screaming glowing humanoids in jars. Carefully, he clambered up onto the chair. “And look! Here are the letters we is meant to find for Gnarl.”  
  
“That are nice and wicked,” Maggat said thankfully. “I not like idea that they might be in safey or something. Okay, Maxy, do what you is needing to be done, and then we can be going. Don’t try to explain it to me, because it are scary reading things. I wants us to be done in maybe three hand-hand seconds.”  
  
“Says you, who is counting things all the time,” Igni grumbled. “And Maggat! Fettid is stealing things too!”  
  
“Is not,” Fettid countered, quickly stuffing the strange garment made out of loops of black string out of sight.  
  
The minions froze as someone groaned. As one, their heads swivelled to stare at the luxurious and rather mussed bed, where an emaciated, shrivelled man was lying, wearing only a loincloth, a domino mask and the remnants of a cravat. Even if he had been strong enough to stand, the chains would have stopped him.  
  
“Help,” he managed, huskily. “Please. No more. I can’t… she… too much…”  
  
There was an awkward pause. “Oh, there is no worries,” Maxy said brightly, from up on the chair. He continued to read the letters in the black envelope, tracing the characters with one finger. “We is just a figment of your imagin-a-shun. You is going crazy because you is dying,” he sniffed, “from the snu-snu of the sucky-bus, and so you is seeing a bunch of things what look like goblins, but are clearly and obviously better in any way you is caring to mention.”  
  
“Oh,” groaned the man. “I had thought… someone might have… release me please.”  
  
“Nope,” Igni said. “Because, like Maxy said, we is just thinky stuff in your head and so we no can let you go, or Gnarl get very angry at us for leaving place not like how we finds it. Also you is looking like a Hero of some sort, and so we no can let you go because it are against the Minion code. Because… uh we is Evil nightmares of you.”  
  
“Yeah, that is makin’ sense,” Scyl agreed. “Because we is Evil nightmares of things which are clearly better than goblins, we is not letting you go. If we was Good nightmares, we would want to let you go, but we no want to so we don’t.”  
  
There was a scratching of a pen from Maxy. “I think I is done, and I has done what Gnarl say I must do with letters which will be read out by announcy peoples,” he said. “I think we is needing to go now, because suckybus will come back here to get letters.”  
  
“I hear there is once a sucky-bus who is falling for the Karin. Then she take it into room and when she come out, it go and become a nun,” Scyl said dreamily.  
  
There was silence from the minions.  
  
“This are the Karin we is talking about. And you know how the overlady get when she angry and how kissyness make her angry,” Maggat said firmly. “The Karin probably tell it, ‘I catch you acting in kissy ways again, I cut your head off’. And sucky-buses need their heads. How else they do kissyness? We is also needing our heads, though, so… goodbye, Mr Chained Up Hero. We is goin’ to be goin’ now.”  
  
The emaciated man groaned. “Fairwell, nightmares. At least unlike the other forces of darkness who have visited me in my captivity, you have not touched me or…” he shuddered, “other things. Your presence was a relief in that way, at least.”  
  
Igni tilted his head, staring at the man on the bed. “Hey, you know what’d be real fun?” he said, slowly. “Hey, Mr Chained Up Hero, we think we can be doin’ something for you, too, but you needs to be doing something for us. Speakin’ as nightmares, of course.”

* * *

From the darkness of the rafters, something gleamed. Slowly, torturously, a great flaming eye opened, joined by a second, then a third and a fourth. Burning with unholy light, they sought out what they longed for, hungered for. Across the lightless stage they cast pools of illuminated blasphemy, searching, seeking.  
  
Something moved on the right of the stage. The burning gazes tracked them, seeking out the release which was eternally denied to them. But no! There was another stolen wonder on the other side of the stage, and the demonic horror flicked two eyes over to track them too. It would be free! It would!  
  
Illuminated by the spotlights, the two presenters made their way onto the stage. And sitting down at one of the tables in the audience, Louise felt Jessica stiffen in anger. She took in the female one of the pair. Louise glanced to her right, and noticed that Jessica was glaring at the woman in a particularly attractive – and manly – way. She came to a conclusion. “Another cousin?” she asked. “There seem to be a lot of them.”  
  
“What are succubae famous for?” Jessica muttered. “I wonder why on earth I would have a lot of insufferable, beautiful, bitchy cousins on the demonic side?”  
  
“Stealing the life force of their victims? But why does that mean you have a lot of cousins?” Cattleya asked, sounding rather confused.  
  
Jessica stared at her, and shook her head. “But with Dad and my grandfather bound, my aunt’s basically the queen in all but name,” she said, choosing to ignore Cattleya. “She doesn’t like me. Well, she doesn’t like Dad. And she puts her children in all the best jobs.”  
  
“Excuse me,” said the dark-haired woman who, along with her blond male companion, were sharing the table with them. The blank mask covering half her face was mutely intimidating, as was the weapon kept close at hand. “It’s starting, and could you please not chatter?”  
  
A black-dressed demon, half-bowed, made their way up to the table, and passed a note to Gnarl. The minion unfolded it, read it, and then nodded once, stuffing it into a pocket. “Your evilness,” he said, “I must take my leave. I am needed for a minor technicality.” He departed as drums, vast drums in unseen depths sounded.  
  
“Welcome, welcome!” the red-haired, green eyed man standing on the stage said, his eyes dancing over the audience. “This is the nine hundred and seventh Cabal Awards, and I’m your host for this evening. I am one of the nameless lords of the expanses beyond the Abyss, from realms beyond even your comprehension. All I gaze down upon, I control.” He paused. “And last time I was here, I was picking up an award for Most Handsome Demon Lord, though of course, that was eight hundred years ago.”  
  
“Ooh, oh, and I’m his co-host,” said the purple-haired woman with great ram’s horns. “I’m just a lucky little girl who’s getting her first major break, so I hope you’ll be _gentle_ with me, your villainousness. And I have to say, this is a very close-fought Cabal Awards. The tension is really hotting up, which is just as well given the weather outside. From what I’ve heard, all the records have been broken for the bets on the winner. Certainly, this looks to be one of the most promising ones in as long as I can remember.”  
  
“Well, yes,” said the man, “but you’re only twenty-three.”  
  
“Technicalities, technicalities,” the woman said, to laughter. “I may not have been born aeons ago in the uncounted depths of inchoate chaos, before linear time itself was hewn from the fabric of meaningless atemporality…”  
  
“Don’t put it like that,” the man said, his voice deadpan. “You’ll make me sound old.”  
  
The woman giggled, and Jessica growled. “I hate her so much. Hate. So much hate,” the dark-haired girl muttered. “That was a terrible joke.”  
  
Cattleya nudged her. “Shhh,” she said, “I’m trying to listen here.”

* * *

“And I’d like to thank the Cabal so much for this Lifetime Achievement Award,” grated the red-skinned, horned demon through its mouth of needle-like teeth. “I remember back in the bad old days… why, those knights used to scream when I sliced them up. Modern knights, who’ve stopped wearing all the armour and started carrying pistols… those blessed demi-lancers aren’t _real_ knights, like there used to be. The Dark Hermetic Empress never had to put up with those sorts and the sanctified blackpowder which is all the craze these days! And another thing! Let me tell you about what this holy new generation of overlords are doing! Why don’t they use proper dungeons like…”  
  
The full details of this ‘another thing’ was not heard, as the music started playing and the magical amplification to the demon’s voice was cut.  
  
“Quite shocking!” Louise distinctively heard a demon sitting at the next table along say. “Using language like that… there’s going to be complaints! There are children scrying in on this! I know he’s an industry veteran, but acting like this at the awards? Using sanctimonies like that? He must be drunk!”  
  
Jessica sighed softly. “He hasn’t done anything in years,” she muttered to Louise, “and look at that belly. He never had that back when he was wreaking havoc on the lands of men. The journals say he has a drinking problem and fell off the chicken wagon again publically a few months ago. And that brass-and-scythe get-up? Very gauche and dated. But of course you can’t say that his work is just dated where people can hear you. His fanbase is fanatical and vocal; of course he was going to get that award this year.”  
  
Louise had very little idea what Jessica was talking about, so nodded and said, “That’s dreadful,” so the other girl would think she understood.  
  
Well, things were going… tediously. She had been trying to keep track of all the Evil deeds done and remember the faces of the malefactors so she could – when she could be Good again – provide useful information to the forces of righteousness, but… yeesh.   
  
No wonder her armour had drawn so much attention in the journals of the Abyss. She’d lost track of all the identical tall, statuesque busty women who had paraded themselves in front of her on the stage. Were they printed out of some sort of mould, she wondered? Indeed, the only way to tell them apart was by their weapon, their haircut and just how little flesh their ‘clothing’ covered. She’d had to close her eyes at some points, because it had been so utterly indecent that she simply couldn’t look. It had almost been a relief when the winner of Best Economic Domination Strategy – busty, red-headed and almost-looking a bit like a paler Kirche – had actually been wearing a dress, because that had been more fabric than the rest of the women up for that award had been wearing combined.  
  
And the men! The men were often just as bad! Although at least they seemed to have two physiques, rather than one. Grizzled, unshaven muscular meatheads with pectoral muscles larger than her… head, or effeminate, pretty boys who… uh, reminded her of slightly older Guiche de Gramonts. The latter tended to come more from the Mystic East.  
  
Actually, the person who had beaten her for the Best Newcomer award, Emperor Lee of Cathay… he had been fairly cute, in an exotic way. Not too tall, saturnine, and with clever eyes. And he was an emperor, too… an emperor of a barbaric, non-Brimiric nation and a traitor, usurper, and evil sorcerer admittedly, but… well, maybe she could have a dance with him after the awards were handed out, and see what he was like as a person. She even had to admit that it was probably fair enough that he had beaten her for that, and by congratulating him and saying he was the better man… or possibly the worse man, she’d need to check with Gnarl on the proper phrasing… anyway, by saying that, she’d look good – or possibly bad – in his eyes.  
  
She was also getting rather hungry. And there was a little thought at the back of her head that at some time this night, she’d need to go to the toilet and she really wasn’t looking forwards to that bit. She had a nasty premonition that her feet would be aching by the end of the night, too.  
  
Gnarl clambered back into his seat, and cleared his throat. “I am sorry, your wickedness,” he said to Louise softly, “but certain bits took longer than I expected. But everything should be arranged now.”  
  
“That’s good,” Louise whispered. “Uh… what ‘everything’.”  
  
“Nothing very important,” Gnarl said, smiling to himself. “Just a few irrelevancies which should help us in the long run. And I made sure to make it back in time for your big moment.”  
  
“My big… I lost out on the Best Newcomer,” she said.  
  
“Oh, your evilness, that was to be expected,” Gnarl said calmly. “With what that Cathayan emperor has done in just one year, it would have been suspicious for you to win. There would have been questions raised about it, and the Cabal does not like having to ask such questions.”  
  
A horrible suspicion began to dawn over Louise and she glared at Gnarl from underneath her helmet. Before she could say anything, however, music began to play.  
  
“Ladies, gentlemen, both and neither,” announced the faceless, bodiless, manifest voice which had been making such statements throughout the entire evening, to present the award for Best Halkeginian Villain, "may I present Lillysuffering Crim’sondoomblood, leader of the Dark Elves (North West Halkeginian Reformed Contraorthodox branch)."  
  
Louise detected a certain lack of enthusiasm from the onlookers. For her part, she was rather more worried about the fact that there was going to be an _elf_ , on stage, possibly even giving her an award. She… really didn’t know if she wanted to win or not, now. Elves were terrible, malevolent forces of wrongness opposed to the Church and mankind in every way possible! And whatever a Dark Elf was, it was probably _worse_.  
  
… actually, thinking about it, that was probably why it would be giving out an award for evil deeds.   
  
But the elf was not what she was expecting. Not that she exactly knew what she was expecting, but whatever it had been, it had not been… this. Every individual bit of the elf was suitably wicked. Her dress, such as it was, was black and had about as many holes in it as your average spiderweb. The spider theme continued with her earrings and other silver arachnid piercings, and the various strategically placed spidery tattoos. She wore a spikey collar, and spikey bracelets, and a single pauldron which was, yes, spiked. She had a pair of scimitars at her waist, and a whip, all of which were elaborately jewelled. And the ears which poked out of her hair were suitably pointy, in case there was doubt to the elven nature of the woman.  
  
It was just rather let down by the girl at the centre of all these adornments, who reminded Louise rather strongly of one of her classmates, Marie de Bruxelles and who could really do with a bit more height and a diet to pull off such a dress. There probably were people who could make it suit them, but she was not one of them. And from the faint blush when she walked on stage and the occasional nervous fidget, she knew it.  
  
Louise felt a sudden pang of sympathy, and then a wave of intense smugness that she had been confident enough to not pander to the dreadful and improper fashion sense which seemed to dominate in the Evil community. Or at least in the female parts of it.  
  
“Oh, Lilly, Lilly, Lilly,” Jessica muttered sadly, incidentally confirming Louise’s beliefs, “you didn’t listen to me when I said you can’t wear arachnochique like that. I told you, you should have gone for something more post-Alexian sorceress, but no, you didn’t listen.”  
  
“Hello!” the girl said on stage. “Before I get st-started on the awards, I’d like to spend… um… just a moment of your time to talk about the n-need to cast down civilisation and return all men and elves to living in the forests with nature! Which… um, well, it’ll kill lots of people because they’ll be eaten by wolves and wild cats and spiders and things like that! We’re d-doing our best in the Dark Elves to do this, and we’re searching for the last remnant of the elven royal line who… well, we made a pr-prophecy that when the elven kings return, who were, after all, overthrown by the Senate who said they were evil because they were making them pay taxes… well, we made a prophecy that when we find the True King… or True Queen, as the case may be, we’re not sure… but when we find them, that’ll certainly overthrow all the nasty Goodness of the elves!”  
  
Jessica leant back in her chair, and folded her arms in front of her. “She’s a bit… pathetic,” she said, softly, “but Lilly tries so hard and you can’t bring yourself to look down on her. It’s a bit sad, really. I went out drinking with her once… well, rather more than once… you know elves can’t hold their booze, right? Like, at all? She gets totally shitfaced after a single shot of Rusean spirits. I’m talking fucking _hammered_ , here.”  
  
Louise shifted uncomfortably. “Do… do you have to swear quite so…”  
  
“Anyway, when I was helping her into some fresh clothes because… well, she’d thrown up all over herself, she started talking about herself a bit. Her parents are big leaders in the Elven Senate, she’s from one of their big rich families… the Leafblossoms or the Merryweathers or the Bushes or something like that. Then she said she realised that elven society and their cities needed to be wiped out and make them go live in forests and stuff… which sounds really pretty horrible to me, she certainly has her heart in the wrong place, so she founded a secret cell of Dark Elves to try to overthrow their government. You know, sort of like you, only you’re actually able to do actual Evil things and blight the world with dark magic and kill government figures, rather than just putting up posters, planting trees and painting slogans on buildings.”   
  
Under her helmet, Louise blushed. Well… she was better at something than an elf. She just wished it was something she could admit to in polite society. Polite, non-Evil society.  
  
“Of course, the elven government called them a blight and a bunch of long-haired evildoers who should be conscripted into the elven military so they’d learn proper elven values, and she started sobbing onto me when she talked about how they killed quite a few of her friends,” Jessica continued. “I think she only barely escaped herself.”  
  
“And in the elven land, we bl-blew up the headquarters of several mining and logging companies. We even sent warnings first so they knew how they c-couldn’t do a thing to stop us. All h-hail Evil! So everyone, d-do your part and c-cast down the civilisations of men and elves!” Lillysuffering Crim’sondoomblood concluded, up on stage. She looked down, and picked a black envelope. “Now onto the nominations.”  
  
There were the same drums in the depths.  
  
“Up for Best Halkeginian Villain are… Graf Vilhelm von N-Nacht, the Count of the Night.”  
  
“Vilhelm, with the sacrifice of a hundred virgins, drew a cloud of night which poisoned the crops around Lake Valdermer in south-west Germania. He enjoys torture, beatings, and leaving unsuspecting women pregnant with his bastards and then failing to support them.”  
  
“Shafeela, the M-Marked.”  
  
“A subtle corrosive force in Albionese politics, this year has seen the plans of Evil for the Albionese monarchy come to full fruition. With the execution of the King and the Prince Wales under her belt, Shafeela is one to watch, though her failure to eliminate the Princess Hibernia before she fled to Germania will cost her in the ranking. The tendency of Heroes to emerge from cast-down bloodlines is a well-known thing.”  
  
“The Overlady of the North, the Steel M-Maiden.”  
  
“The dark horse in this race, the Steel Maiden surged to prominence this summer with the murder of one of the Council of Tristain, the Comte de Mott, and the arson of the town he was visiting at the time. And in a sudden late entry which will be sure to impress the Cabal, she broke into the de la Vallière estate, home of feared force of Good Karin de la Vallière and stole an artefact of great and ancient Evil which they had been keeping locked away.”  
  
“Don Marikos, the Masked Bandit.”  
  
“Murderer, thief and vigilante, the Masked Bandit is on a quest for revenge against widely loathed figure of Good Blizhart von Zerbst. The Iberian’s flaming hair burns as hot as his fury, and his wicked fire magic has burned down entire villages to try to lure his nemesis to him. Rumours say that he is now turning his focus to eliminating the things in the world Blitzhart most cares about, starting with his shocking destruction of the man’s statue in the Plaza of Heroes in Roma itself.”  
  
“And Cestiere Vie, the Revitrificatior.”  
  
“Practising a unique blend of necromancy, fire and earth magics, this Gallian low-born mage animates his custom glass golems which puppet the minds and bodies of men. At this very present time, he controls almost half of the duchy d'Aquitània without the knowledge of anyone else.”  
  
Louise blinked heavily. That… was pretty alarming news. She’d need to find a way to tell someone about that. She smiled to herself. And so evil brought about its own downfall at the hands of the righteous. Like her. She wasn’t evil. She crossed her fingers and took a deep breath. Come on, come on, come on. Next to her, Cattleya squeezed one of her hands.  
  
“And the winner of Best Halkeginian Villain is…” there was a drum roll. Louise found herself holding her breath, gripping tightly onto the arms of her chair. It’s not that she wanted to win! It wasn’t! She wasn’t a villain at all; indeed, she was secretly working to thwart the evil, wicked Council who had so treacherously worked against Princess Henrietta! So not winning was a good sign!  
  
She just… wanted to win. Because she had won almost nothing before in her life, and this was something massive that she apparently had a pretty good chance at.  
  
“… Shafeela the Marked!”  
  
Louise let her breath out explosively. Reluctantly, she joined in the applause, as a black-robed, masked – was that a woman under there? She wasn’t sure – figure climbed onto the stage. She… this wasn’t fair! She should have won!  
  
“As expected. Wonderful,” Gnarl said, happily, and made a little note in his book.  
  
With glowing eyes, she glared at the figure with an inverted Brimiric pentagram on the forehead of its mask. Oh, she was going to make sure of this ‘Shafeela’s’ downfall, be sure of it. If they were behind the murder of the Albionese royal lineage, that means they were behind the whole Civil War! Which meant that they were, at heart, behind the situation that Princess Henrietta had been put in! Which meant that it was perfectly in line with her plans to make sure that they were crushed beneath her steel-clad shoe as punishment for their actions!  
  
After all, they had won an award for Best Halkeginian Villain, and that meant they were an irrevocably damned force of Evil, right?  
  
Yes. Yes, it did. Smiling broadly, applauding her foe, Louise de la Vallière began to plot her revenge. In the name of righteousness for the mighty wrongs committed by this foul villain, naturally.


	25. Party Up 5-4

_“Dear diary. Possibly day 263 of my unending captivity. Still kicking myself for not keeping a diary earlier. Mother only lectured me for half an hour today through the door. She must be losing her voice. Good. Apparently my wickedness has tainted the country and so the Overlady of the North they all talk about is all my fault. The old hag’s delusions know no bounds. She gave me a new book today. On manners and etiquette and obedience towards one’s parents. What fun. Have started tearing out the pages and making paper birds from them. Much better use for it. Maid didn’t come today. Hope she shows up tomorrow; I want to know how she got on with Henri and Jacques.”_   
  
–  Henrietta de Tristain

* * *

Shoulders hunched over, stubby wings protruding from the back of her low-cut dress, Jessica downed her drink. “It… it doesn’t really matter,” she muttered, slamming the glass down onto the table. “There’s always next year. Right? Right?”  
  
“Oh, you don’t want to do that,” said Cattleya, who didn’t have a drink. “You might break the cup, and then you’d get glass in your hand.”  
  
“But really?” Jessica continued, ignoring the vampire, “Prahdear? Of all the people? Why him? He’s… he’s a talentless hack! He has no flair! No style! No originality! He couldn’t design his way out of a wet paper bag with a sharp pencil!” She grabbed another drink, and downed it.   
  
“That was my drink,” Louise objected.  
  
“This sucks,” the dark-haired girl muttered rebelliously. “Like, I could accept that Pyria beat me. Some of her work in blended fires is gorgeous. I’d love to be able to do what she does. But Prahdear? His things; they’re bland! Conservative! I… it’s not fair!” She glared at Louise. “How are you taking it so well? You lost out on two things! You don’t look even upset!”  
  
“Oh, well,” Louise said, shrugging with a clanking noise. “I guess I’m just taking the defeat well. I was a little annoyed at the time, but… well, I decided to take it in a mature and sensible way, befitting of my heritage and status.”  
  
Cattleya frowned, her eyes crinkling under the mask. “That doesn’t sound like you,” she said suspiciously. “Are you feeling alright? Do you have a temperature? Oh! Oh! Are you overheating in the armour?”  
  
“Thank you, C… Countess,” Louise said acerbically.  
  
“I’d think not,” Jessica said, sounding offended. “I designed that to be fire resistant and comfortable.”  
  
“Anyway,” Louise continued, “… no, stop it, stop trying to feel my forehead to see if I have a temperature.” She fended away Cattleya’s room-temperature hands, paused and restarted. “Anyway, being beaten by the Cathayan emperor was fair enough. I haven’t done anything as evil as taking over a whole country.” Inwardly, Louise smiled. It was perfectly true, because killing the comte de Mott hadn’t been a bad deed at all! This lying-by-telling-the-truth was so useful! “In fact, I think I’ll go and congratulate him in person. As I’m going to get another drink, anyway. You know, just in passing.”  
  
For someone who was drinking anything she got her hands on, Jessica was apparently still quite aware. “Yes, he was rather cute, wasn’t he?” she said. “Exotic. And he looked… you know, smart and sensitive, unlike the muscle-laden meathead types around here. Plus, you know, he’s an emperor. And had a really large staff. With a dragon on top.”  
  
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Louise blustered. “And… uh, you’re clearly a bit tipsy so… sister, please take care of her. And don’t try to drink her blood.”  
  
“L… Lady!” Cattleya said, her hand going to her mouth in shock. “I wouldn’t do that!”  
  
“Sorry, I know, it was…”  
  
“Have you seen how much she’s drunk? I don’t know how she’s still upright, but I don’t have a demonic tolerance for alcohol! I’d probably… like, end up catatonic!” Cattleya paused. “Also, it would be wrong to take advantage of her,” she added. “Or possibly right! I’m sorry, I still don’t have this evil vocabulary thingie working properly!”  
  
“And I can shoot hellfire from my eyes so if you start trying to vamp on me I might do something you’ll regret,” Jessica added darkly, looking around for anything with more alcohol in it.  
  
“Precisely!” Cattleya said, in a happy tone. “My condition understands threats of burny violence. So everything’s just swell!”  
  
“... I see,” Louise said, slipping down from her chair. Yes, perhaps everything would be better with a drink in her. One which hopefully she would be able to finish before Jessica made a move on it.

* * *

All alone, Louise de la Vallière wandered through the thronging masses of the aristocracy of the Abyss. This might possibly have been a mistake, she considered. She didn’t realise how much she had relied on being near Jessica, who knew all the strange customs of this place, and Cattleya, who could tear the head off a man with only a minimum of effort.  
  
She squared her jaw, and steeled her nerve. She couldn’t show fear. They might laugh at her. Or kill her and eat her soul. The latter was probably the worse of the two options, but it was a close thing.  
  
“Fair lady, I have always found that the advantage of this prayer-fiscal method is that one can so easily trap mortal cultists in a cycle of endless dependency, a captive market which one can restrict their options where they must continue in their worship or suffer immediate withdrawal,” a lilac-skinned bald demoness with pitch black eyes was saying to the busty, horned redhead who had won the ‘Best Economic Domination Plan’ award.  
  
“That’s certainly a thing,” the red-head said back, “but have you ever considered instead building up the value of your human capital?”  
  
“Once. It ended poorly, because a Hero found them. With how unstable the human world is at the moment, a slash-and-grab strategy is the only one which works. Long term investments are just too risky at the moment.”  
  
“That is a real problem,” the other demon said sadly.  
  
Louise grated her teeth at that. Oh, if she could just set the lilac demoness on fire! How dare she treat people like that! Stamping off with a disgusted glare at the various scantily clad women of Evil around her, she tried to find a waiter.  
  
The reason for the paucity of the help was explained when she found the table of dragons. Her finding involved ‘looking towards the end of the vast hall where the giant scaled flying lizards were’. There was a full crew of tuxedoed demons serving them drinks, pigs wrapped in bacon, and cows impaled on oversized cocktail sticks. The aforementioned giant scaled flying lizards came in all colours, from the smallest blue one to a giant black one who, despite the best efforts of the serving staff, kept on smoking. Louise decided to listen in while she tried to catch the attention of the help; after all, any little bit of information she could gather could help thwart the causes of Evil that was not her.   
  
Not that she was evil, of course.  
  
“The hoard market is up,” declared a female-sounding green-gold dragon, holding a bathtub-sized vessel of wine.  
  
“Not really surprising; the price of gold and jewels always increases in these troubled times,” said a grey dragon.  
  
“Oh, indeed, indeed,” said the black-scaled dragon said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “I must admit, I was over-leveraged in property. The way the bottom fell out of the dungeon market twenty years ago adversely affected my capital position quite badly. I’d bought to let, and when all those petty overlords and dark champions and the like proved unable to meet the rent – because blessed Heroes had cut their heads off – I went into negative equity. I lost vast sums in the Karinian Crash.”  
  
“Oh, indeed, me too, me too,” said the feminine-sounding green-gold one, sipping from her drink. “Why, it shows quite shocking irresponsibility by the nations of the world. To think that they blame us for burning down all those towns and demanding tributes of princesses! The way they sent all those Heroes to pillage my dungeons was nothing less than government-sponsored theft!”  
  
“I think what we have to discuss here,” added the black dragon, “is who are the real forces of progress and dynamism here? The forces of Good? Hardly! Without us, society would stagnate! We create jobs and wealth! We’re the ones responsible for keeping the gold flowing!”  
  
“From humans to us,” agreed the red-scaled one.  
  
“Quite so! Why, peasants would probably laze around all day if they weren’t beaten by their lords to make as much as possible, so they can pay the tributes we demand of them! And we’re the way the nobility disposes of surplus children!”  
  
“They’re juicy, and are the best we can get in this time of high prices on the world markets for princesses.”  
  
The black-scaled dragon huffed sadly. “We used to rule Halkeginia, you know,” he said, exhaling a smoke ring. “Those were the days. But then the wretched forces of Good cast us down, and then when Evil inevitably rose again the new Overlords were usually humans and thus had an irrational fear of putting us in charge again.” He fixed a heavy eye on the youngest and smallest dragon at their table. “Pay close attention to our words, young lady; don’t ever believe humans when they tell you that they’re offering an alliance out of the Darkness of their hearts. Only accept payment in gold.”  
  
“Or precious gems,” interjected the red-scaled one.  
  
“Oh, indeed, indeed. But favours are worthless compared to lucre. Humans often try to give us filthy lucre, but you should have better standards and only accept clean coinage. Are you keeping this all in mind, young one?” he said, leaning towards the smaller blue one in a way which Louise could not help but feel was a paternalistic manner.  
  
“Yes! Yes, it’s really interesting!” the blue dragon said, sounding young, female, and more than a little awestruck. “I’m… well, I’m really honoured to be invited to sit with all of you and… I didn’t expect any of this, so I don’t want to seem rude and interfere or anything!”  
  
“Proper behaviour from the young,” the green-gold dragon said, approvingly. “Ah, I used to be romantically involved with your father; tell me, what does he have you doing at the moment?”  
  
“Oh!” said the blue dragon. “Well, my parents don’t believe in inheritance unless we can prove that we can make enough money on our own that we don’t need it.”  
  
“A somewhat radical position,” a grey-scaled dragon said, snootily. “A real traditional family would just let their children eat each other or be killed by heroes until one survived who deserved the inheritance.”  
  
“So, well, at the moment I’m… I mean, I have an intern position with Big S… with Milady d’Winter. I just need the experience and the contacts before I can build up my first hoard. She’s put me in contact with a lot of dealers in occult tomes and blasphemous books! She also, when we’re not otherwise occupied, lets me live in her ruined… well, it’s not quite a ruined castle, it’s mostly only a bit dilapidated, but at least it hasn’t had a fresh coat of paint in a while. That’s how I got the invite to be here, at the Cabal Awards; she… well, she relies on me for a lot, so she needed me to come with her!”  
  
“Milady d’Winter?” asked the black-scaled dragon, frowning. “I don’t believe I’ve heard of her.”  
  
“No, no, she’s a very private human. She does assassinations, eliminations and disposal of rivals for… well, it’s government work, I think you’ll understand if I can’t say more. I don’t want to get a bad reputation this early in my career!”  
  
“Very wise, very wise. No one likes a blabbermouth.”  
  
“Oh, indeed so,” the black dragon said. “Hmm. Tell me, does she take private commissions? There’s a wretched evil clown who’s being extremely obnoxious and is kidnapping children from a place I’ve gone to quite some effort to develop as a long-term investment. This cannot stand; if he isn’t disposed of quickly, I’m afraid some blasted Heroes will show up and ruin years of work.”  
  
“I’ll certainly put you in contact! And…”  
  
That was all Louise cared to listen to, because she was bored, thirsty, and had managed to work her way up to a waiter.  
  
“Wine!” she demanded, and then paused. “Wait, no. What do you have that’s stronger?”

* * *

Even Cattleya’s smile was starting to get a little fixed as Jessica continued to drink. This may have been the product of her surprise just how many shots the other woman was managing to put away. It may also have been because she was slowly being exposed to the full list of Jessica’s diatribes.  
  
The current topic was ‘how hard it was to get drunk when you have the alcohol tolerance of an incubus’.  
  
Cattleya strongly suspected that Jessica had rather less resilience to drink than she thought she had. She was also starting to get thirsty herself, and was wondering where Louise had got to. The appearance of the elf who had given the speech for ‘Best Halkeginian Villain’, holding what looked to be a glass of fruit juice, was rather a welcome relief.  
  
“Oh, heya, Lilly!” Jessica announced loudly. “How’re you doing?”  
  
The elf blinked, gingerly picking her way over to their table. She was taking more than a little care not to step out of her dress – if were one to call it that substantial a garment – and had both arms crossed protectively in front of her in case of mishaps. “Um. I’m… uh, w-well, I think I’m… okay. I mean, I… I w-wanted to _die_ out there wearing this and I d-don’t know how Emerald t-talked me into wearing this and…”  
  
“That’s great! I’m doing _shit_.”  
  
“Oh. Um.” Lilly wilted in the face of this conversational opening, but bravely pushed on. “You were s-so right about the dress. Arachnochique is… um, not me. At all.” She sighed. “It’s… actually w-worse than when we have to c-carry out things to our dark g-goddess when we’re… um, naked, because at least that’s dark and everyone’s naked and… well, she mostly just eyes us up, says we’re all out of shape, and makes us d-do more training afterwards. Everyone was just staring at me, and n-not in a good way! Your overlady person and your fr-friend here… those look like things I could actually wear. And the masks would hide the blushing.”  
  
“Well, at least someone fucking values my opinion!” Jessica declared to the world.  
  
Lilly took a seat, muttering under her breath and blushing bright red as a wardrobe malfunction necessitated a hasty recovery. She edged closer to Cattleya. “How much has she had?” she asked.  
  
Cattleya pointed mutely at the table. “All of that. Um. Do you want to borrow my cloak?” Cattleya offered, feeling acute sympathetic embarrassment for the other girl. Even if she was an elf.  
  
The look of gratitude in Lilly’s eyes was nearly terrifying in its intensity. “Thank you thank you,” she said, looking a lot happier now she was wearing a red-lined opera cloak and had multiplied the area of fabric she was wearing by about two orders of magnitude. “Uh… you’re the C-Carmine Countess, right? I… uh, saw a sketch of you in the j-journals.”  
  
Cattelya nodded. “Even though,” she dropped her voice, “I’m not really a countess,” she said. It was so clever of her! It made her sound as if she was secretly lower class pretending to be a higher aristocrat, rather than a member of the high nobility pretending to be an inferior noble. No one would ever suspect that! “And you’re called Lillysuffering?” she asked.  
  
“Please, call me Lilly.” The elf dropped her voice in turn. “It’s my real name,” she admitted. “I j-just know how _stupid_ Lillysuffering sounds, but it’s the one people know m-me by.” She sighed. “I should h-have begged Emerald to d-do this ceremony instead of m-me and said I was doing… um, some dark ritual or something,” she said. “I get all n-nervous in public places, and I h-hate-hate-hate Los Diablos. There’s no trees or… or… it’s dead. And all polluted. It’s as b-bad as home.” She paused. “As good as home,” she corrected herself.  
  
Cattleya nodded sympathetically. “I don’t think demons really go in for nature,” she agreed. “I don’t like that; running with my wolves was one of the things I really like doing when M… whenever I could!”  
  
“Oh, you keep wolves?” Lilly said enthusiastically. “I have a few, but I really like my pet spiders! They’re so cute! And they’re such good mothers, too!”  
  
“I tried spiders, but I never had much luck with them,” Cattleya admitted. “Though I think some of that is due to my bats.”  
  
“Oh yes, bats are a real problem. They eat the spiders and also the same prey. Have you tried any ground-living spiders?”  
  
Jessica pointed an accusatory finger at Cattleya, grabbing the nearest drink and downing it. “You! Don’t start trying to… you know, fucking vamp her up! Lilly’s a friend! I don’t want you breaking her heart by taking away all the blood it needs!”  
  
“Uh,” Cattleya said, leaning back in her seat, “that was a trifle unexpected. What did I do to deserve that? And please, L… my lady has already asked you this evening about not swearing so much.”  
  
“J-Jessica is a m-mean drunk,” Lilly contributed.  
  
“No I’m not! Shut the fuck up, Lilly!” Jessica paused. “Oh dear,” she added, because the elf seemed to be somewhat closer to being in tears than she normally was. “Look, just drink your fruit juice.”  
  
“Y-you drank it. Just now.”  
  
Jessica looked at the glass in her hand. “Huh. So I did. Where did that come from?”  
  
“I put it down,” Lilly said, as Cattleya carefully eased the empty glass out of Jessica’s hand.  
  
The dark-haired girl leant back, her stubby wings arching upwards over the back of her seat. “Okay, maybe I’m a little drunk,” she admitted. “And really, really pissed off. In fact, I’m fucking enraged! Fuck this! Fucking cheating fixed unfair…”  
  
Metal crunched as Cattleya squeezed down on the table, her fingers extending into claws. Fangs bared, she leaned forwards. “Just stop swearing so much!” she hissed in a corpse-rattle.  
  
Lilly gave a pathetic squeak, and the red glow in the vampire’s eyes died down. “Oh, I’m so dreadfully sorry,” Cattleya apologised. “Really, I very much am. That’s not me. That’s the hunger for the blood of the living speaking. It’s just flipping annoying, how you swear all the time.”  
  
“Maybe I’ve got the right!” Jessica snapped back. “Maybe I totally should have won that and it went to an uncreative, talentless hack! Who probably bought the prize! Or f… slept with the Cabal for it!”  
  
“Please!” Lilly said, raising her hands. “C-can’t we all just get along?”  
  
A silence fell over the table, the half-incubus brooding and the elf wringing her hands together, looking nervously between the two of them. Cattleya, for want of anything else to do started shifting empty glasses around the table.   
  
Jessica blinked heavily, and focussed on the pink-haired woman. “What are you even doing?” she asked, frowning slightly blearily.  
  
“Oh!” Cattleya put down the glasses, and clapped her hands. “I’m just moving all the glasses so they’re positioned symmetrically on the table. At the moment, they’re all over by you, and it’s just…” the woman shuddered, “… it’s like when you walk into a room and one of the paintings isn’t level. It’s like a pain in the eye!”  
  
Jessica stared at her. “Whatever makes you happy,” she said, eventually.  
  
“I wonder if there’s anyone to drink,” Cattleya said, looking around. “I just can’t stay here staring at these things!”   
  
“If you’re going to be getting some wine, um…” began Lilly, “can you see if they’re doing s-something very weak?”  
  
“Oh no,” Cattleya said, “I don’t drink… wine.” She paused, and added, “It’s just jolly nasty tasting.” She pulled herself up, and neatly flowed into the crowd, moving with inhuman elegance.  
  
There was a silence.  
  
“Well… uh, she s-seems nice,” Lilly said brightly. “I mean, for an undead m-monster. And. Um. You do swear too much. And you’re drunk.”

* * *

After several minutes, Louise managed to explain while she had, in fact, asked what they had that was stronger that wine, she did not want an alphabetical list, and also wanted it to be both not too strong, and not fatal to someone with a human metabolism. That reduced the list down to a manageable size.  
  
In the end, she had still just ended up with wine. Although it was a very good vintage, grown by evil Romalian monks according to the server. She had made a note of the monastery it allegedly came from. It would see righteous purging, in time.  
  
Though she might want to order a few bottles first. This really was a very good wine, she thought, sipping it. And then she tried not to spit it out, at the sight of the… thing heading towards her, with a quill and notepad in hand. Louise tried not to stare at the twisted figure. It was a woman, yes, and in certain ways she could have had the potential to… well, not be a horrific blasphemy against all that was right and proper. But as it was, she was certainly eyecatching, and the overlady could barely take her eyes off the – demon? That had to be a demon, right? – the woman.   
  
She had curves in all the wrong places. The girl was fairly sure the chest was not meant to bend like that. Or expose its contents.  
  
“Ah, the Steel Maiden! Sah’leah Juen’nez, Los Diablos Times. You were up for two awards, yes? But didn’t get either of them. How do you feel about that?” The woman’s quill was at the ready, like some monstrous talon.   
  
Wait, no, it _was_ a monstrous talon.   
  
“Well, I wasn’t the favourite,” Louise said blandly. “And Emperor Lee… the Cathayan emperor… well, I feel no shame in saying that he is a more wicked man than me. But trust me, I’m already working on the plans for my entry for next year.”  
  
“Considering your very first year saw you murdering a member of the Regency Council of Tristain and stealing an Evil artefact from the de la Vallières, that’ll certainly be something to see,” the journalist said. “Care to give my readers a clue to what you’re planning?”  
  
“Of course not,” Louise said, flatly, and then forced herself to smile. “That would just ruin the surprise.”  
  
“Rumours have whirling around Los Diablos dinner circuits about your background,” the twisted woman said. “The accent of a Tristainian noble from a very well-off family, you refuse to show your face in public, and you have the Gnarl himself as an advisor… is it true you were once one of the comte de Mott’s mistresses, before you suffered a disfiguring injury and your lover cast you out?”  
  
Louise balled her free hand into a fist, the other still occupied with holding her wine glass. “I do not comment on my past,” she said icily, “and anyone who asks should take care. I consider such speculation _highly_ insulting.”  
  
“Still going for the mysterious past,” the journalist said, apparently not intimidated at all. “Fair enough. Please can you hold still for a moment, while my assistant,” she gestured at a monstrous half-human, half-spider creature worked away with a charcoal, “… yes, we have your sketch. Thank you very much for your time, your evilness. I don’t want to occupy too much of your time; not when you have other demands on your time.” She winked at Louise, in a salacious manner, and then wandered off toward the table of the dragons.  
  
Louise let out a breath slowly, turned, and found herself face-to-face with Emperor Lee.  
  
“Um,” she said.  
  
The Cathayan man said something.  
  
“This Imperial Dark Majesty, Emperor Lee, Lord of the Dragon Throne, Master of Wickedness, Lord of the Countless Armies of the East, Tyrant of the Prohibited City, Sorcerer-Vizier of the Ninth Seal bids you welcome!” announced his translator.  
  
Louise took in her rival up close. He was… yes, he was handsome, in a somewhat exotic manner, but also surprisingly young. She would be surprised if he was more than a few years older than her, if that. His hair was dark and somewhat spikey, as seemed to be customary for many of the inhabitants of the Mystic East; his eyes were sharp. His dark robe, now that she looked closer, was not one piece; instead, it was made up of carefully layered garments of subtly different shades of black and dark blue, picked out with tastefully done hints of silver.  
  
He was also, unless she was very mistaken, wearing armour under it.  
  
“Greetings, your majesty,” she said, because there was such thing as manners.   
  
The emperor said something.  
  
“This Imperial Dark Majesty, Emperor Lee, Lord of the Dragon Throne, Master of Wickedness, Lord of the Countless Armies of the East, Tyrant of the Prohibited City, Sorcerer-Vizier of the Ninth Seal bids ye; heed well his words, for he is the fountain of all wisdom! You barbarians of the outer lands should be honoured to hear him speak! Listen well, for he says that he expresses mild respect for your deeds and your actions! For a lackless barbarian, you have done acceptably!”  
  
Louise began to redden, and the emperor said something harshly.  
  
“This Imperial Dark Majesty, Emperor Lee, Lord of the Dragon Throne, Master of Wickedness, Lord of the Countless Armies of the East, Tyrant of the Prohibited City, Sorcerer-Vizier of the Ninth Seal bids ye; heed well his words, for he is the fountain of all wisdom! If you don’t stop interjecting commentary on what he is saying, he will have your fingernails pulled out with red hot pliers and hammered into your eye sock… oh, he was talking to me.”  
  
There was a babble of foreign language between the two of them, and the translator hurried off, throwing nervous glances behind them.  
  
“Translators,” the emperor said in heavily accented Romalian. “They more trouble than person is worth, I think some days.”  
  
Louise smiled, a genuine expression of amusement. “You speak Romalian very well,” she said. Certainly far better than she could speak Cathayan, which was to say, ‘not at all’.  
  
“Oh, you no flatter me now. I know I not that good, but maybe, now we talk without I insult you because of stupid translator. I speak small Romalian.”  
  
“No, no,” Louise insisted. “I can understand you; I deal with people on a day to day basis who have a far worse grip on the language than you do.”   
  
He probably didn’t need to know that those people were minions, but that didn’t make it not true.  
  
Together, they made their way through the hall, picking their way through crowds of demons, warlocks, and the other attendees.  
  
“Sometimes, I feel like idiots surround me,” Lee said. “Not just translator, though he have no will to survive. You see rivals? I no respect person who no grasp power is point of evil. Like… you wear armour. That good. Armour stop kill. I wear armour too. Evil women who no wear armour, they die. Too interested in body, not interested in keeping body intact. Useless! Act of a concubine, there to look pretty, not of ruler who keep hand around throat of world with iron grip!”  
  
Louise blushed. “Oh, I quite agree!” she said, taking a sip of wine. “Isn’t it very telling that the greatest female Hero… indeed, the greatest Hero of the last generation wore full armour?”  
  
The emperor let out a slow breath. “Yes, we hear tales of the Karin in Cathay,” he said. “Very scary lady. I hear tale that she no has fingers under metal glove; she just has more wand for more magic. She not fall into trap of being objectively suboptimal! You hear tale of how I kill last vizier, before I kill emperor? He get magic amulet which project him against knives, poison, and which wake him up when person try to kill him in night. He paranoid. But he not have protection against disease! He catch disease from biting insects from Ind I let loose in room, he die! What kind of person no have protection against diseases? Suboptimal!”  
  
“I have no idea,” Louise, who did not have any protection against diseases, agreed.  
  
“It so stupid,” he said, sighing. “You have impressive aura of Evil magic. You know that? You very powerful Evil sorcerer… perhaps even more power than me, but I have more dragons than you! Maybe we talk more in longer time when I find new translator who understand I no want misunderstandings. I send you head of old translator as sorry gift, yes?”  
  
“Um… thank you?” Louise said, not quite sure where this was going. “Though I don’t think that…”  
  
“You dance?”  
  
Oh. Was that where things were going? Oh my. Louise looked around somewhat frantically, hoping for help. All she could see was Cattleya, talking to a very handsome-looking man. No help there, then. Well, all she could do was follow her sister’s example.  
  
Louise screwed her eyes shut, downed her wine, and opened them again. “I’d love to,” she said, trying to ignore the churning sensation in her stomach.

* * *

“Have you seen the Steel Maiden?” Cattleya asked again, speaking loudly and slowly to try to get it into the thick skull of this meat-bound musclehead. What kind of man seemed to think that his muscles replaced the capacity to converse normally?  
  
Also, it was jolly hard to take this kind of man seriously when one was fairly sure that one could break his arm off if it wasn’t a bad thing for a well-mannered lady to do. Her mother had always taught her that decent young ladies didn’t tear off men’s arms unless the man had attacked them first. So instead she pushed past him, ignoring his protests.  
  
“Excuse me?” she said to the nearest waiter. “Um! Excuse me!”  
  
“My lady?” said the demon impishly.  
  
“Do you have… uh,” she should probably be good, because she had been rather pigging out on unicorn and she had noted a certain… tightness in some of her older clothes, “… a bull’s blood, please?”  
  
“Certainly, my lady. Coming right up,” he said, ducking behind a pillar and somehow emerging with a wide glass filled to the brim with red liquid.  
  
“Thank you very much,” she said, passing him a small coin, and wandering off. Jessica had given them both a long and complicated talk on how one was expected to tip the help in the Abyss, and she hadn’t understood it, so she was going to follow the instructions to the letter. Cattleya took a sip, and turned pale. Delicately, trying to stop anyone from noticing it, she spat the red liquid back out into the glass. This wasn’t bull’s blood at all! This was just a red wine! She had a jolly good mind to find the waiter who had played this horrible, mean trick on her and give him a piece of her mind! And then drain most of his blood!  
  
But that would be wrong.  
  
Looking for Louise, she instead found Gnarl. The elderly minion was sitting between two very buxom demonesses, a large goblet of brandy in front of him. The blonde one was scratching him behind the ears, and… was he purring? “Ah, Countess,” he said, crocking a finger at her. “How are you doing?”  
  
“Um… well,” Cattleya said. “I mean, the Abyss is jolly strange, but it’s interesting. Although I can’t find a drink. Have you seen the overlady?”  
  
“Last time I saw her,” Gnarl said, “she was dancing with the emperor of Cathay.”  
  
“Oh, that’s nice,” Cattleya said warmly. “He looked like a smart young man. Good for her.”  
  
“Take a seat,” Gnarl said, patting the thigh of one of the demons sitting next to him, who giggled. “I feel we perhaps should have a little talk. There is something you can do at this little gathering to aid the overlady, and as her chief advisor I feel it is most certainly in her best interests for you to listen to my suggestions.”


	26. Party Up 5-5

“ _Ah, good day! Is this the headquarters of News Infernal? I would like to take out a subscription to all of your fine publications. I will make the first payment now. Just put me down under the name ‘Legate de Legionary’. What? No, I don’t know why you think my voice is familiar. I am certainly not a Hero in disguise, using the way that Evil publishes what its major figures do to spy on them. That would be ridiculous. What kind of Hero would be so wickedly cunning? As all us Evil people know, Good isn’t that bright._ ”  
  
– A Mysterious Robed and Masked Figure

* * *

Louise and the dark and very tyrannical usurper-emperor of the mystical lands of Cathay were mid-way through their second dance. It was a very awkward, and not at all romantic affair; partly because neither of them knew any of the dances the other did, but mostly because they were both wearing heavy armour and thus any possible flirtatious touches of flesh against flesh had two layers of demonic steel in the way.  
  
The hordes of journalists drawing sketches of them did not help.  
  
If her parents knew what she was doing, she would be mortified. Quite possibly literally.  
  
But what was about to come would be Louise’s most perilous, hazardous, and downright dangerous task so far in all her time of pretending-to-be-an-evil-overlady-but-not-really-being-evil.  
  
She needed the toilet. And was wearing full armour, including an armoured skirt she had never really before and had needed Jessica’s help to put on.  
  
Oh dear.  
  
So making her excuses, she made her way to the women’s toilets. She was on a timer here, and really didn’t want to run out.  
  
“Ah, your wickedness. Shame about the awards, eh? Honestly, I think you really deserve to have won the Halkeginian one; I’d say Shafeela should have lost out for the number of times she’s entered it, not to mention the way the Albionese rebels just aren’t Evil enough.”  
  
Louise glanced at the cravat-wearing demon with the monocle who seemed to have taken her proximity as an excuse to start talking to her. “Thank you,” she said, “but I disagree there; I would say that the Albionese rebels are very wicked indeed.”  
  
“They overthrew a king and executed him and his son; big fuss. Anyone can do that. It’s not even always an Evil act! Where’s the sacrifices? The torture of priests? The impalings on spikes? Nowhere to be seen!” The demon flapped his hands. “Oh, they banned festivities and parties at the Silver Pentecost? That’s not Evil! That’s just boring!”  
  
“Perhaps so,” Louise said, trying to step past him.  
  
“Now you? Apart from your armour, you’re doing things the proper way. You killed a member of the regency council in a dramatic duel! Bravo, I say!”  
  
Louise had seldom been in the situation where she was trying to escape praise. It was a strange feeling. Well, she hoped that was the strange feeling she was… uh, feeling. “That’s kind of you to say…” she began.  
  
“And then stealing a wicked artefact from the forces of Good! That’s what we should be encouraging today! That’s the exemplar of Evil; humiliating do-Gooders while empowering yourself. Of course, I remember when the de la Vallière family was a proper force of Evil in this land. Those were the days. Why, even the mother of the current Duke once summoned me and I asked her, ‘Oh, why did you summon me, little girl?’ and then she branded me with a red hot iron and made me suffer for daring to call her a little girl. It turned out, of course, that her bathing in peasant blood led to her sometimes rather overshooting her intended age when restoring her youth, but that didn’t matter so much to me when I was writhing in pain! And she plucked out both my eyes when I made fun of her lack of a bust and asked if her husband was into that sort of thing!” He caught Louise’s dubious look at his present eyes. “I got better.”  
  
“Mmm hmm,” Louise said, feeling somewhat nauseated by the descriptions of what her… grandmother had got up to. What a wicked sinful family she came from! What a good thing she was nothing like that deplorable woman! “We… uh, well, oh.” She paused. “Get out of the way,” she said, trying for a little less tact. “I need to… I’m heading for the toilets.”  
  
That actually worked and even got her an apology from the demon. She managed to make her way past the many and varied obstacles of people who wanted to talk to her, aware always of her sharply diminishing time limit.  
  
The female toilets in the Abyss were not what she had expected. They looked like… well, she had only one way to explain it, and it was ‘like Cattleya had been told to decorate them, and had only been allowed to use black marble, red leather, mirrors and the souls of the damned’. To put it another way, there had been lots of attempts to make them comfortable and pleasant to be in, but the base materials were somewhat working against that aim.  
  
Louise passed the eternally-burning damned soul who reached out to cling onto and dry the hands of visitors, nodding at a vampire and a demon who seemed to be doing something arcane and mystical with white chalk on the marble surface around the sinks, and secreted herself within one of the cubicles.

* * *

Deep in the shadows, a blood thirsty monster lurked. Eyes gleaming red, it stood as still as the grave. It did not breathe. Its heart did not beat. It merely waited, fangs bared, for its prey.  
  
Then Cattleya sighed and stepped out of the alcove. Lurking was not working. They were probably… sitting down somewhere, or something. Clearly she would have to go find the demon Gnarl had told her to herself.  
  
With perfect grace, she flowed through the crowd. Everyone here smelt… delicious. Of course, everyone started smelling delicious when she was hungry, but she could positively taste the exotic bloods which were pumping around various circulatory systems.  
  
… which was wrong and it was a curse and she really should be a good girl and just find some animal blood, but Founder darn it, it was hard work! And she had already tried to be good once today and got a glass of icky wine for her troubles.  
  
The world, Cattleya had concluded, was a jolly mean place. Or at least it was a mean place when she was this thirsty. If she didn’t get a drink soon, she’d using silly words like ‘saturnine wings of tenebral night’ in her thoughts and no one wanted that.  
  
And then she paused in her search, as a remarkably out-of-place figure caught her eyes. In among the muscle-bound men, the effeminate long-haired men, and the scantily clad women was a man who looked to be in his late fifties, with greying, thinning hair. He wore a somewhat scruffy robe, with patches at the elbows, and even appeared to have ink stains on his fingers.  
  
He looked very much like a kindly tutor, one prone to forgetting what he was meant to be talking about and going off on rambling discussions of moths and mice and whatever small animals he was currently interested in. Cattleya had always liked those tutors, especially when she was still alive and they were prone on taking her out into the gardens during summer to catch butterflies rather than talking about boring dull theology.  
  
Running around at night with a moth-catching net just wasn’t as fun. Not that she didn’t still do it, but still!  
  
Well, now her curiosity was snagged. And anyway, he looked kindly and he might know what she was doing wrong to get wine when she had specifically asked for a bull’s blood.  
  
“Hello!” she said, from directly behind him, before remembering she wasn’t really meant to silently walk up behind people and introduce herself. Father had been quite firm about that. It put them on edge.  
  
Fortunately, the elderly gentleman seemed to be quite at ease. “Ah, good evening mademoiselle,” he said. “Or should I say madam?”  
  
“Oh, no, it’s certainly mademoiselle,” Cattleya said. “I’m not married.”  
  
“I see,” he said knowingly. What he knew, Cattleya didn’t know, but that was of no accord. “I have to say, you appear to be a rather forward young lady, simply walking up to me out of the blue,” he added.  
  
“I was looking for a friend of an acquaintance, and then I saw you and you stood out so I thought I might talk to you,” the girl said honestly.  
  
“Ah. You’re not a frequent attendee of these things?” he asked.  
  
“This is my first one,” she admitted. “It’s jolly interesting, you know.”  
  
“Hmm. So you would like to converse with me. Well, for example, have you ever thought about how the Church is fundamentally corrupt, almost as if it was an organisation founded and run by men with no greater divine guidance, which suggests that whatever Good deeds it does could be done without the parasitic leeches of the upper clergy?” the man asked, kindly.  
  
“I should think not,” Cattleya said, rather shocked despite herself.  
  
“You should probably try that some day,” he said. “Though yes, I do have to say it’s a rather questionable belief. And it’s really all a matter of opinion. Now animals; animals are a much more interesting thing.”  
  
“Oh yes,” Cattleya agreed, “they really are, aren’t they? I am very fond of my puppies. Well, my sister keeps on saying that they’re fully-grown enthralled flesh-eating wolves, but they’re all puppies to me.”  
  
The man smiled, running a hand through his greying hair. “Ah, I see you are a scholar. The relationship between wolves and dogs is indeed very clear, is it not?”  
  
“Yep! They can have adorable babies together!” Cattleya said.  
  
“Quite so, quite so. But have you seen the skeletons of other such animals. Have you see how most animals… well, they’re pretty similar. I mean, they all have four limbs, two…”  
  
“Apart from dragons,” Cattleya said helpfully. “They have six. Oh, and manticores have six, too. And griffins. Oh! And there’s a wyvern skeleton in the hall in… a place where I used to live, and do you know, they have stubby nubs of bone in front of their wings which I think used to be arms! It’s jolly interesting, because you can even see how the dragon skulls in Mother’s collection are all very similar, and how, for example, wind dragon skulls are much sleeker than fire dragon ones, like you grabbed their snout and pulled it... oh, and turned the bones into clay at the same time. Even all the skulls are in a rather untidy heap, because she ran out of space in the ossuary for them!”  
  
“Um…” began the man.  
  
“Oh, this is frightfully interesting! I haven’t got to talk to someone about this in a long time! Do you have anything else you want to talk about? And do you know what I have to ask the waiters for to get some blood?”  
  
“You’re a vampire?” the man asked, disappointed. “Oh, that’s a shame.”  
  
“Sorry,” Cattleya apologised. “Uh, why is that a shame? I mean, apart from the obvious reason.”  
  
“Well, I’m afraid, young lady, that your soul is irrevocably tied to your corporeal, necrotic form. It’s utterly worthless to me. You couldn’t sell it even if you wanted to.”  
  
“I think I’m missing something,” Cattleya said, frankly.  
  
“Oh, I do apologise. Some call me the Doubter; others, the Underminer of Faith; others yet the Prince of Moral Decay. Where I walk the world, men commit adultery, often with other men; women get pregnant outside of marriage, cats sleep with dogs and generally I cause immorality and the breakdown of the rightful order of things. The upper echelons of the Church whisper my name in fear, for mere knowledge of a dark god such as myself induces sin in the doubtful, and that name, that dreadful name is _Athe_.”  
  
“Oh,” said Cattleya in a small voice. She had been accidentally very, very naughty talking to this dark god. Now she felt all guilty about it; more so because she had been enjoying the discussion. Her interest in adorable little animals had always been something she had in common with her elder sister, and before everything had been ruined by it being Eleanore’s fault that she was now a blood-hungry queen of the night. They had been close, her trailing after her cool big sister with her butterfly nets and her plant sample bag, and… now the two of them never talked. Even on the rare occasions their parents got them in the same room – and that was no more than once or twice a year. And…  
  
“… wait. I beg your pardon?” she said politely. “But did you say my soul was tied to my body?”  
  
“Yes, a wretched and stinking tainted thing that must feed of the life of more vital creatures, drawing in the life and energy of the world around it to maintain its own horrific existence for ever and ever and…”  
  
“But it is my soul, yes? Not some demon or something bound into my body that just thinks that it’s me even though it isn’t?”  
  
“Well, yes, but…”  
  
Cattleya embraced the malevolent deity in a big, all-encompassing hug. “Thank you thank you thank you!” she squealed. “That’s something I’ve wanted to know for ages! I do have a soul! Thank you very much! I’m sorry, it’s been really jolly interesting talking to you and I’d like to maybe talk to you some more later about adorable, cute animals and the like and how they’re all similar, but I do have to talk to some other people and I really wouldn’t want to waste your time! Thank you!”  
  
And with that said, she skipped off into the crowd, leaving the dark being of black faith somewhat confused. It was only when she got most of the way across the room that she remembered she hadn’t even managed to give him a chance to tell her how to get blood. Oh, she was so silly! And he had been so nice, and so very interesting! Yes, technically he said he had been a dark god and good girls didn’t associate with them, but at least he had been the better class of dark god, and didn’t have, you know, slime or anything uncouth like that.  
  
She smiled a shy smile. And after that interesting talk and how she had got the wonderful news that she was her and not some monster just pretending to be her – which had been worrying her for quite a while after she had read that philosophy book – now she had found the demoness Gnarl had sent her to look for, who appeared to be dressed mostly in snow.  
  
Her sister’s cute little goblin advisor thing had said that this demon had super-special important information, and that she should stop at no lengths to obtain it.  
  
Cattleya’s stomach rumbled. The lengths she went to for her little sister, really!  
  
“Hello!”

* * *

Seven minutes of hopping around and cursing under her breath, two minutes of private business, and six more minutes of hopping around and muttering as she tried to refasten some of the ties, Louise opened the door. Well. This may be the Abyss, the place of wickedness and sin and other such dreadful things, but they certainly had their priorities right in certain ways. She busied herself at the basin, ignoring the moaning of the damned soul who was chained to the wall handing out towels.  
  
“Oh, hello there,” a somewhat sultry drawl said behind her. “The Overlady of the North, wasn’t it? The one who was with the Gnarl.”  
  
Louise turned to come face to… well, the newcomer was taller than her and somewhat on the buxom side, so she looked up so the two of them were face to face. It was the succubus who had been announcing the arrivals, the one – she could recall – who Jessica had complained about. Looking at her up close, away from the lights and the glamour, Louise could indeed see that – insofar as one could determine a demon’s age – she looked to be fairly young, perhaps only as old as Jessica herself, and there was a distinct reddish tint to her blonde hair she hadn’t noticed the first time and a slightly exotic cast to her eyes and her skin. She looked vaguely familiar. It must have been the family tie to Jessica, she considered.  
  
“Izah’belya? Was that it?” Louise asked. “I… think I read it in an… uh, journal. I heard your commentary on the way in.”  
  
“Yes, that’s me,” the blonde said, red eyes wide and cheerful-looking. “I’ve been following your exploits, by the way. You’ve been pretty impressive, and… well, honestly, I couldn’t stand that slimy little man.”  
  
Louise blinked. “Excuse me?” she asked.  
  
“The comte de Mott. Dreadful little man,” Izah’belya said, sniffing. “Only interested in the temptations of the flesh. Nothing cerebral about him at all. What kind of a man has no interest at all in a woman who proves to be perfectly capable of intelligent conversation when she offers him some mutually beneficial deals?”  
  
The girl pursed her lips. “I’m not sure how to put this,” she said critically, “but… uh, you are a succubus.”  
  
Izah’belya rolled her eyes. “Oh please, don’t tell me you’ve been listening to J’eszika,” she said, flexing her bat-like wings. “My cousin is a spoilt, pandered half-breed who is doted over by her father who’s a mockery of the once-proud prince of the abyss he was. She lives in a perpetual state of bitterness at my wing of the family, and believes she’s entitled to the world. Why, she stole Prince Infernalis from me when we were little girls and tore his head off!”  
  
“Uh…”  
  
“He was my favourite doll!” The succubus took a deep breath. “But honestly, that’s not that important. I was hoping to get to speak to you anyway, and this seems as good a place as any. How are you enjoying things here? You’ve got a rather mysterious past… is this your first time at the Cabal Awards?”  
  
“Yes,” Louise admitted.  
  
The succubus gave a throaty chuckle. “Did you like my sister’s… well, she’s a half-sister, but who’s counting… did you like her presentation? Me, I was quite amazed she managed to remember her entire speech. That’s why I suspect that she had it written on her hand. Not too bright, I’m afraid. Like most of my half-sisters.”  
  
Louise smiled back at the other girl warmly. She certainly seemed nice enough, and she was really rather pretty and… wait a moment. That wasn’t a normal thought. Not one bit! She didn’t think about how other girls were pretty! Especially not demonic girls. Even Jessica made her think of handsomeness, not prettiness! Yes, now that she focussed on it, it felt rather like one of the thoughts Jessica tended to provoke when she got masculine, though far weaker and more subtle.  
  
“Please don’t do that,” Louise said, false sweetness in her voice. “I find it very displeasing indeed. And,” she clicked her metal-clad fingers against the marble of the sinks, “rather offensive, actually.”  
  
The blonde’s eyebrow quirked upwards. “I’m not doing anything,” she said, in apparent innocence.  
  
Louise didn’t believe her.  
  
“But anyway,” Izah’belya continued, “I do believe you and I can have some rather profitable interactions.” She smiled. “Don’t mistake me for some shallow lovvie like Ah-Nahb’elle or Kri’stinne. My primary interests lie in the occult trade.” She chuckled again. “I believe you might say I ‘succubus’ for pleasure, not profit, if you were to be very crude. And you are very, very promising.” She dropped her voice. “Shall I let you in on a little secret?”  
  
The overlady nodded, as someone was noisily sick in one of the closed cubicles.  
  
“Certain… friends of mine are party to some of the Cabal’s deliberations. Things were _incredibly_ close. Most years, you’d have won Best Newcomer; Emperor Lee – have you talked to him? Frightful bore! No sense of fun at all! – well, there’s no way he couldn’t have won. And not just because he’d probably have hatched some long term plan to sweep into Los Diablos leading an army of dragons,” she added, bat-like wings twitching. “And the Best Halkeginian Villain one was even closer.”  
  
Louise blushed. Internally she was almost singing. It had been that close, had it? And then her mind kicked back into action. “You think I am a… how to put it? A winning horse to back?” she asked.  
  
The succubus shook out her long reddish-blonde hair. “Precisely,” she said. “Though, to put it another way, if you read the journals, you’ll know that my mother is Queen of the Abyss in all but name, and is virtually uncontested. My uncle is bound and trapped. And I have lots and lots of half-sisters. The line of succession is… somewhat unclear, if for some reason my mother should be slain by heroes. Which is fairly likely,” Izah’belya said bluntly, “given my family’s luck in the past century.”  
  
“What do you want?” Louise said bluntly.  
  
“Oh, it’s really not what I want,” the other girl said. “It’s what I can offer you. I think you have the potential to dominate Tristian, to bring it under a reign of darkness, and I want in. I own Prahdear… literally; the fool gambled his soul and lost. I pulled strings with my mother to make sure he won and will be getting headlines for years to come, so I can get you outfitted by the winner of the Best Outfit. I can get you in full-sheet spreads in all the specialist journals; get you an outfit worth speaking of, and as I said, my primary interests lie in the occult trade. You’re a sorceress; I have plenty of tomes, vile blades and damn’d suits of armour you would be interested in.”  
  
Louise’s eyes narrowed, the light within burning brighter. “I have armour,” she said flatly.  
  
“And poor you!” the succubus said, red eyes widening and one lightly-tanned hand going to her mouth. “To think J’eszika used you as a test subject for her dreadfully mannish tastes! I don’t suppose I can blame my cousin there, you know; it’s not her fault that her father is a boorish incubus, but she could at least fight it better! My mother even offered to adopt her, you know, but she had the ill taste to turn it down.”  
  
Louise’s thoughts flashed to ice-cold. She had fought to have armour which had her not looking like some… some… some Germanian trollop! She had needed to argue Jessica down! And now this tall, busty – which already made her ill-inclined to like her – succubus was daring to condemn her armour? She… she would probably want her to start wearing something more typical of the females around here!  
  
Nobody insulted the armour. Nobody. She was fiercely protective of her armour. Because it was protective of her. In that it actually protected her.  
  
“No thank you,” she said, in a clipped tone. “Though I will, of course, note that you are a source of books and the like, I believe that as it stands, I am more than happy with my current arrangements. That will be all.”  
  
The succubus stepped back, her face flashing from shock to disdain to a sullen pout. “That’s not very fair!” Izah’belya said sulkily. “You could at least give it some proper thought! That’s… that’s actually rather hurtful! Oh, what, do you think this is all just part of some elaborate seduction scheme? Is that it? I bet that’s it!”  
  
Louise said nothing, because she was a well-bred and well-mannered young lady and thus really wasn’t supposed to lie.  
  
The blonde threw her hands up. “Typical! Honestly, you can rig the Cabal Awards and muscle into the occult materials trade, but Abyss forbid that anyone take a succubus seriously when she thinks with her brain!” Wings twitching irately behind her, she flounced out.  
  
Staring at herself in the mirror, Louise sighed. She was rather afraid Gnarl was going to shout at her when he found out that she had made this decision without even checking with him. And then she was hit by a ballistic Jessica.  
  
“Thank you thank you thank you,” Jessica sobbed into her shoulder.  
  
“Where did you come from?” was about all the overlady could manage, not least because she was having to support the rather heavier girl.  
  
“I was being sick because… um, I think I forgot to eat and so it was all disagreeing with me and I heard it and…”  
  
“How much of it did you hear?” Louise asked, feeling acutely embarrassed by the whole thing.  
  
“All of it! And you… you turned all of that down! For me!”  
  
Louise tried to manoeuvre Jessica around, so she could at least support her weight on her front and let her sob into her surcoat. Now she felt like a fraud. She hadn’t been thinking of Jessica at all with that decision; it had been a pure, instinctive reflexive rejection at the idea of having to wear something disgracefully skimpy. “Well, I still want to buy books from her if I can…” she said, trying to quench the guilt.  
  
“Oh, that’s just… that’s just magic! But you… I’m just one person, and you turned down having Prahdear and all his teams working to outfit you and…” Jessica degenerated into bubbling, coherence only working its way back up, “… and just because I’m a half-breed, of course I’m never going to win something like this!” She wiped her eyes on her sleeves. “I never asked for my mother to be a Hero!” she snapped. “I bet that bitch hardly had to pull any strings to make sure her pet talentless hack won! I’ve been trying since I was fifteen to get some respect, and do you know, you’re the first time I got it! I… I actually had people saying I did good stuff, talking about orders since I made your armour!”  
  
“There, there,” Louise said, patting her gingerly and trying to ignore the growing shortness of breath and warm fuzziness which told her that Jessica was near and getting emotional.  
  
“I can’t do things in the surface world because I’m half-demon, and… and I can’t do things down here, because I’m half-Hero. Everyone always suspects that I’m suddenly going to… to start using my powers for Good! Just because my mother was a Hero and Dad’s the Prince of the Incubi! Only you and your… your sister and... and Lilly and her misfits just treat me as… as… as a person!”  
  
Supporting Jessica’s weight, Louise had managed to stagger over to the damned soul with the fluffy towels, and took one of them, passing them to the other girl. “There, there,” she said again, because it hadn’t produced a bad response the first time.  
  
Jessica mopped down her face and blew her nose on the towel. She was red and blotchy in the face, and also had the slightest hint of a goatee. “Well, you know what! You can count me in! If the only people who actually seem to want me around are you and Lilly… well, I’m on your side, because Lilly lives out in the woods and it’s cold and miserable out there and I went camping with her once and… I don’t want to live out there for extended periods. If that’s all right with you, I mean. You… you don’t have an armourer, right? I can do that!”  
  
Louise patted her on the shoulder. “You’re drunk,” she told Jessica.  
  
“I know! But I’m still doing it! My bitchy cousin has just made it very clear I’m… I’m not going to get my life’s ambition working in the system of the Abyss, so I’m going outside it!”  
  
“What ambition would that be?” Louise asked, while she got another towel and began to mop herself down from where Jessica had cried on her.  
  
“Oh?” Jessica said, putting her hands on her hips. Her eyes glinted, despite the distinctly queasy expression on her face. “My ultimate ambition? I don’t want to follow fashion. I want to be ahead of it. I want to be the one leading it!”  
  
Louise smiled. “Well, this should help,” she agreed.  
  
“And then,” Jessica continued, “once I’m well ahead of fashion, I can dig a big pit for fashion, and when it falls down it, I’ll have fashion trapped.”  
  
“Um,” said Louise. “I think you lost me there.”  
  
“And when fashion is at my mercy, I will break it like a wild horse! And then tame it, and it will be my noble steed, taking me wherever I want to go. If it will not be tamed, I will call upon dark magics and bind its will to mine, branding it forever with my mark! The soul of fashion will be mine!”  
  
“Uh, well, that’s ambitious,” Louise said quickly. “I’m not sure if what you’re saying is a metaphor or something or… oh, look. Welcome on-board, anyway.”  
  
Jessica grinned. “Glad to be,” she said, before paling. “Oh crap,” she said, dashing back into the toilet, and throwing up again.  
  
There came a knock at the door. “Ladies,” said a female demon in the armour of one of the security guards, “the Cabal extends its apologies, but all guests are requested to gather in the main hall. We appear to have a Hero loose backstage. He’s got a pistol, a burning sword, and is only wearing a loincloth and a bow tie. We would remind all guests not to attempt sexual congress with armed and dangerous heroes who are attempting to kill them. He has already set fire to large amounts of the backstage area and killed several demons, but Security expects to have the situation under control momentarily.”  
  
Jessica was noisily sick again.  
  
Louise nodded at the armoured demon. “Uh… can you just give us five minutes?” she asked sweetly.

* * *

It was an enlarged group which made its way back to Louise’s ruined tower and attached dungeon complex.  
  
“I do wonder how on earth a Hero managed to break out from a succubus’ bedroom and… and what he was doing there in the first place,” Louise asked, removing her helmet to show that she was more than a little red in the face. “Honestly, I can’t say he was much of a Hero if he let himself be lured into such a place!”  
  
“I got no idea what-so-ever,” Igni said confidently. “It totally not because he destroy all evidence we was mmmph mmmph mmmph.”  
  
“Oh look at me so clumsy I fall over and accidentally my hand go over your mouth and I holds on very tight and oops if you is not stopping trying to talk I might axe-dent-ly choke you to death,” Maggat said hastily. “We not disturb you any more, Overlady, Gnarl, Oversister and… one who we not have name for yet!”  
  
“In fact, we go hold minion conclave to think up name for her!” Maxy intruded. “And we put your bags away so you not fall over them and we not have any more accidental Igni choking moments and I not have to try to stop Fettid from talking and get stabbed repeatedly for my pains. Which’ll be real biggie pains.”  
  
“Yeah!” Fettid agreed. “Now we can go hide all the loot we stole because the Hero hid that we was…” and then anything else that could have been said was lost when Fettid stabbed Maxy in the eye when he tried to shut her up. The minions swarmed off, Maxy in the lead but closely pursued by the green, who was shouting that she wanted her knife back  
  
Jessica stared at the departing minions blearily, holding an icepack to her head. “Did… that minion just use the word ‘conclave’?” she asked, blinking.  
  
“That one does it periodically,” Louise explained. “The other minions appear to think he has caught education. As in, learning things is a disease.”  
  
“That was a very profitable trip,” Gnarl said happily, thumps hooked into his pockets. “Very, very profitable. You acquired an armourer, I doubled the money in the treasury and…”  
  
“You did what?” Louise asked, eyes widening. “How?”  
  
“I bet the entire treasury on the results of the Cabal Awards,” Gnarl said simply.  
  
“You did what!” Louise shrieked. “You… the entire treasury! You gambled it?”  
  
“Your wickedness,” Gnarl said, sounding shocked, “I do not approve of gambling! Not one bit! The entire arrangement is rigged so the house wins, and when you are not the house, that’s a terribly silly thing to do.”  
  
Louise opened her mouth, about to say something. Then she closed it again, and took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself. She didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of Jessica. “I suppose you’re going to say that placing bets using all the treasury on the winners of the Cabal Awards wasn’t gambling?” she said, resorting to sarcasm.  
  
“Of course it wasn’t.” The elderly minion grinned a terrible, malevolent grin. “Gambling implies the chance of loss. It would have been very foolish to change the results, because the Cabal knows who they selected to be the winners. But reading the selection and then putting a carefully designed selection of bets weighted so there is a considerable, but plausible net gain which offsets the deliberate losses – why, that is a far more sinisterly sensible idea.” He paused. “And that is why, your evilness, I have doubled the amount in the treasury with the assistance of some of the little darlings, while your hands remain clean.”  
  
The overlady was speechless. “Very… uh.” She paused. “Well done,” she concluded.  
  
“Thank you, your evilness. Cattleya also assisted in something else.”  
  
“Yes, yes! There was something I meant to tell you!” Cattleya said, cheerfully. “Gnarl introduced me to a really interesting – and cute – demoness at the party and one thing led to another and…”  
  
“Do I want to know?” Louise asked, dubiously.  
  
Jessica rolled her eyes, and then groaned. She was more than a little hungover.  
  
“Oh yes! Well, one thing led to another, she invited me to one of the private rooms because she said she wanted to talk over a business proposal with me.” Cattleya frowned. “But I don’t think that was what she actually meant. She was a cold one. I mean that literally! Her dress was made of snow! Real snow! But anyway, after I drained a lot of her blood she got very talkative and pliable and then we got to talking and she said all sorts of things and did you know there’s a secret way into the palace in Bruxelles through a crack to the Abyss in the dungeons? She used to be summoned there all the time by the great-uncle of the Queen!”  
  
Louise blinked. “Wait, what? You found… what?”  
  
“A secret way into the dungeons of the palace, so we can break in secretly through the Abyss, kidnap the princess, and lock her up in… well, you don’t have a tall tower, so you’ll just have to keep her in the dungeons!” Cattleya frowned. “You know, Louise, people would probably take you a lot more seriously if you had a tall tower! Towers and princesses go together like wands and… and… and things you keep wands in!”  
  
Jessica groaned and massaged her brow. “Okay, maybe when the world is a little less bright and hurting, I can look more closely at that,” she said, “but I did grow up mostly in the Abyss under Bruxelles, so I know the area. Plus, Dad might have heard about this.” She hung her head in her hands. “For the moment, I just want to go to bed. Did you say you had a room for me?”  
  
“Oh yes, uh…” Louise looked around, “Maggat, take Jessica to the guest quarters for now, until we get a proper room for her set up. And…”  
  
“Speaking of her father,” Gnarl said, “he left a message for you. He wishes to talk to you, your evilness. I would not recommend delaying.”  
  
Louise did in no way delay. “Scarron,” she said as soon as she had got down to the tower heart.  
  
“Ah, oui, oui,” the prince of the incubi said, blowing a kiss. “So good of you to see me! I just wanted to talk about getting the delivery men to get some of my little girl’s things moved over.” He sniffed sadly. “Watching your children grow up and move out for the first time! It is such a tragedy!”  
  
“I suppose so,” Louise said, non-committedly.  
  
“I also wanted to thank you,” the incubus said. “Dealing so quickly with the fragment of the tower heart… well, you more than lived up to your end of the agreement. I will try my best to find the other parts, because cataclysmic magical explosions are bad for business.”  
  
“Thank you very much,” Louise said, bowing her head.  
  
“Oh, and just as a note,” Scarron said casually, “if anything happens to my little girl when she is in your care, I will be freed and restored to my full power. And that means I will be coming for you, because I am very fond of _ma petit_.  
  
“What I would do to you will be whispered by demonic mothers to scare their children in future years,” Scarron continued. “The annals of the Abyss will dread to mention the torments you will suffer. Every nerve will scream in an exquisite chorus of uttermost agony, and I will ensure that you are displayed to the masses of the Abyss so that they might appreciate the beauty of the song of your pain. Even the stomachs of the most vile, the most wretched denizens of the darkest pits will be turned by the sights of what you will endure.  
  
“Of course, with time, you will inevitably pass beyond even my skill at keeping you bound to your flesh, and so I will permit you to die,” added Scarron. “Do not think your own suicide will keep you safe from me should _ma petit_ perish, for I will send my slaves to the Lands of the Dead to drag your spectre, weeping and moaning, into my hands.  
  
“And then, ah, that is when the real fun will begin, because your soul will be mine and souls, unlike flesh, can tolerate _so_ much more. And it will continue for ever. And ever. And ever,” concluded Scarron.  
  
“I… I understand,” Louise croaked, through a dry throat. “I… I’ll keep h-her safe in the Tower.”  
  
“Oh, you would?” the image of the man said, his hand going to his mouth in faux-surprise. “How kind of you!” He essayed a small wave at her. “Bye bye! Be seeing you! One way or another!”  
  
Louise stared at the tower heart for a long time, in numb horror. She… she was just going to go and whimper into her fist for a bit. Until she felt better.  
  
That might well take some time.


	27. Return of the Heroic Interlude

**Return of the Heroic Interlude**  
  
Three nervous horses and one peckish dragon made their way across the snow-covered landscape of Tristain. Leaning forwards in her saddle, arms hugging around the neck of her horse, Kirche von Zerbst groaned. “Please tell me you have an anti-hangover potion, Montmorency,” she complained.  
  
The blonde, eyes all that were visible under all warm clothing she was wearing, shook her head. “I’m out,” she said. “I… uh, used the last one yesterday.”  
  
“You can call it a late birthday present,” Kirche said hopefully, staring blearily out over the snow-covered landscape. “I’ll be very grateful.”  
  
“And I told you, I don’t have any left. It’s your fault for having your birthday right after the Silver Pentacost.” Monmon paused. “Well, your parents’ fault at least.”  
  
“This is a hell of a way to be spending the first day as a twenty-year old,” Kirche groaned.   
  
“I was a little surprised, I must admit, that you’re that old,” Guiche, riding ahead of them, said. “I had thought you were the same age as us. Mind you, I’m nearly eighteen, because I’m an early spring.”  
  
Kirche shot him a glare. “Firstly, you are disgustingly fine this morning, given that you were matching me for most of the evening,” she said. “Secondly… uh, hello? Did you not, you know, notice how I’m clearly older than the other girls?” She jabbed a finger at her chest. “Like these?” Fumbling at her saddlehorn, she took a slug of wine.  
  
“Do you really need to be drinking more?” Montmorency observed primly. “That was what put you in this state in the first place.”  
  
“Yes, I do,” Kirche said firmly. “And it’s not because I’m stupid that I’m with you younglings, before you start being snide,” she added.  
  
“I said nothing,” Monmon said mildly.  
  
“Yeah, but you were thinking of saying it,” Kirche said. “It’s because of how my education got mucked up with the whole ‘being kicked out of schools’ thing and missing years and the like. Had my seventeenth birthday in the jails in Baghdadu, though in fairness we broke out two days later with that magic carpet and that decanter of endless water.”  
  
“Wait, what?” Guiche asked, eyes bright.  
  
Kirche groaned, holding her head. “My father took me to kill an evil vizier with a genie in Rub Al-Khali because he felt clearly schooling wasn’t right for me,” she said. “Also, he wanted to introduce me to harem girls. Man, they knew a lot about sneaking secret encounters with men without the people watching them knowing.”  
  
Tabitha coughed, and looked up from her book. “Why would you keel a vizier with a genie?” she asked after a moment’s thought, sounding confused. “I would use _un_ knife. It is sharper. And can be ‘eard by fewer people if you do ze cut in ze proper manner, or if you drive eet into the base of the skull or up and under ze ribcage, no? Are genies good for killing? Should I be knowing zis?”  
  
“What are you… oh no, the vizier had the genie. Father killed him by braining him with the lamp.” Kirche sighed, and took another gulp of wine. “Anyway, father got furious because the vizier had already used two of the wishes and only an idiot would release a genie, so he just wished it would seal itself away in the lamp in a way it could never ever escape from and then threw the lamp in the family vault.” She glowered. “Which is the reason I’m still female – the whole reason we went to Rub Al-khali was that he was after that lamp,” she added, “and that’s why I started pestering about making a ‘fresh start’ in Tristain.” She shook her head, putting thoughts out of mind. “This had better be worth it, Tabby,” she said, trying to change the topic.  
  
“It eez,” the blue-haired girl said, returning to her book. “You saw ze mezzage, no?”  
  
“Ah yes,” Monmon interjected, “the one which you said was mysteriously pushed under your door in a mysterious manner by a mysterious person who mysteriously is promising hundreds of écu for the disposal of an evil clown who is kidnapping people from Vauban? The place where all those explosives are made?”  
  
“Eez zere a problem?” Tabitha coughed. “Also, ze word ‘myzteriouz’… eet was not uzed.”  
  
“No! I like that amount of money! It’s a friendly amount of money. It’s just…”  
  
“Well, I think it’s good we have a reputation as Heroes,” Guiche said firmly. “Remember what the duc d’Richelieu told us; people like us are the future of heroism and in times like this, we need to work doubly hard to keep the realm secure! We need to go and teach this evil clown that wickedness is not a laughing matter!”  
  
“Sure thing,” Kirche said, kindly.

* * *

It was already growing dark in the winter twilight by the time they got to their destination. The town of Vauban was a strange place, the building squat, heavy structures of stone with slate roofs. There was something subtly off about the lighting. It was as if there was a storm coming, but the clouds above were winter neutral-grey. There was a foul odour about the place, too, though that at least was from the sulphur mines, dug into the side of the hill the town was built into.  
  
Oh, and there was a giant brightly coloured village-sized circus tent set up on the brow of the hill, which the inhabitants seemed to fear to look at. That was pretty strange.  
  
“Oh, the Lord frowns upon this place,” Guiche whispered, as they rode past the corpses at the gallows by the gate. “I do not like it. It is an ill-favoured place.”  
  
Monmon looked around at the dirty buildings and the statue of a rearing dragon above a frozen pond. “You’re telling me,” she said. She looked around at her companions. “Do you think we should go up and… and deal with the clown in the tent now? I don’t want to stay here any longer.”   
  
“I don’t think we can,” Kirche said. “The horses are exhausted, and we’re hungry. We’ll just have to… well, take watch duties and share a room, because,” she glanced at a stinking tannery worker who glared back at her, “… I don’t trust these people.”  
  
Guiche looked uncomfortable. “It’s for the best,” he said, “though we should see if we can get two adjoining rooms and blockade the door and windows of one of them, so there isn’t allegations of impropriety.”  
  
Kirche rolled her eyes. “It really is an annoyance,” she said. “We’ve shared tents, caves, ruined towers, and the jails of goblins before. But still people would talk! So we have to spend twice as much as we meant to! World! Why do you try to steal the money of hardworking Heroes such as us!”  
  
“I could go on Sylphid and deztroy eet now,” Tabitha volunteered.  
  
The boy sighed. “We shouldn’t,” he said. “They said the clown is taking prisoners, yes? Well, we need to rescue them.”  
  
The blue-haired girl returned wordlessly to her book.  
  
“So, find a room at the inn, get some food, get sleep and go up in the morning?” Kirche asked, to mutual agreement.  
  
“If you try to drink too much, I will drop ice-cold water down the back of your neck,” Monmon said. “And that goes for you too, Guiche, if you stare at her when she is drenched.”  
  
Guiche’s expression was hurt as he led their procession to the inn.

* * *

“Barman!” announced Kirche loudly. “One mug of your finest ale, one flagon of your medium-grade wine, another flagon of… uh, some kind of fruit juice, and… what was it you wanted?”  
  
“Milk. Warm. And _un_ barrel of cider for dragon!”  
  
“One cup of warm milk! And a barrel of cheap cider, unless you’re willing to pay more, Tabby!”  
  
When the drinks were served, Kirche took one sip of her ale and immediately went off to complain about it, while Guiche and Montmorency diluted their wine down with the fruit juice, and took advantage of the fact that as nobles, they had been able to force the commoners away from the table nearest to the fire. Tabitha sipped at her warm milk while reading a book.  
  
“What is that?”   
  
“A book,” Tabitha said, without looking up.  
  
“No, I know that.” Montmorency took a deep breath. “I mean, what’s the book about?”  
  
“Blood.”  
  
“Uh…”  
  
“Did you know? Ze human body ‘as a lot of water in it. In a baby, eet is as much as seventy-five perzent, but in adults eet eez closer to sixty. In ze very fat, it can get as low as forty-five perzent.”  
  
“Um.”  
  
“Zat ‘as very interesting implications for water magic, no?”  
  
Monmon tilted her head. Well, yes, she did suppose it was somewhat easier to heal small children and harder to treat the very fat, now she had thought of it, but she had always put it down to the fact that the fat were unhealthy, while small children got better more easily. “Well, that sounds interesting,” she said. “If it says things about healing, could I borrow it when you’re done?”  
  
Tabitha paused. “Eet is not about healing,” she said, quietly. “You would not be interested een eet.”  
  
“In that case, what is… oh, what is taking Kirche so long?” Monmon said, getting bored of trying to parse the blue-haired girl’s thick Gallian accent. “Just accept they’re not going to do good ale in a backwater like this and she should just drink wine like the rest of… well, like me and Guiche. Guiche? Guiche? Oh, where has he got to?”  
  
“I’ve been mingling,” the boy said from behind her. “For example, do you know that Old Woman Bevis will pay twenty deniers if someone goes into her basement and kills all the rats for her? And the alchemist with the shop on the town square is looking for people to collect a certain rare herb which grows in the wilds which he plans to use to make a new kind of potion and…”  
  
“Guiche, we’ve talked to you about this,” Montmorency sighed. “The returns relative to the time we put into them are simply not worth it from talking to random people.”  
  
“I was thinking that we might want to get on good terms with the locals, get them to trust us, before they tell us the actual truth about what’s going on with the circus tent,” Guiche said, sounding hurt. “I mean, otherwise we’ll have to go find the crazy old man _again_ and try to dig the truth out of his mad ramblings. And last time that happened, you and Kirche had me send my golems into that cesspit to find the goblins that lived in it which stole all the countess’ gems.”  
  
“Hey! There were goblins lurking around there,” Monmon retorted.  
  
“Yes, but they were just stealing food from the bins. That was a waste of an afternoon. Has Kirche finished talking to that strange woman yet?”  
  
The blonde girl, about to take a sip of her diluted wine, paused. “What strange woman?” she asked, looking around.   
  
And indeed, Kirche was sitting at a table with… well, looking closer, it did appear to be a woman. At first inspection, it had not been clear. Her reddish-blonde hair was cropped short; she wore stockings and breaches like a man, and whatever femininity she might have had was marked by the old pale burn scars which marred half her face.  
  
“Oh, she’s another outsider. She was passing through looking for… well, she was a little vague about what she was looking for, but she stopped here, and has been here for a week or so, trying to get to the roots of why there’s a giant evil circus tent outside the town which no one wants to talk about.”  
  
“Mmm,” Monmon said. She didn’t trust the woman. She was sitting a little too close to Kirche, leaning in a little too close for it to be… trustworthy. “I think we should go over there and hear this,” she said.  
  
“That’s probably a very good idea,” Guiche agreed. “Come on, Tabitha, this might be the break we’re looking for!”  
  
“And so I told him, he’d need a sheath made for a dagger for his blade, and I wasn’t impressed by his little knife!”  
  
“And then what?” asked the scarred woman, eyes gazing deep into Kirche’s.  
  
“I beg your pardon,” said Kirche.  
  
“And then what happened? Did he find a better fitting scabbard?”  
  
The girl blinked. “It… it was a joke,” she said, weakly. “Oh, hey, you lot. Everyone, this is Agnès. She’s a chevalier. Used to work for the royal family as a protector; now freelance.”  
  
Tabitha touched Agnès softly on the hand. “Eet is a problem, zeir joking” she said quietly. “I ‘ave asked them many times what zey mean by such things, and zey never do explain eet.”  
  
“Who’s the Gallian?” the older woman asked, evidently giving up on Kirche’s cryptic ways.  
  
“Oh yeah, I should introduce them better. The pretty blond is Guiche, the less pretty blonde is Montmorency, the one with her nose in a book is Tabitha.”  
  
“Hey!” Monmon began to protest.  
  
“Ah, of the de Gramont family,” the chevalier asked, half-turning to Guiche. “Your older brother might remember me; we put down a rebellion of black nuns in a convent on the Gallian border a few years back, back when I was still with the army.” Her lips curled down. “Such behaviour is not unexpected of nuns, of course.”  
  
“Oh, I think I do recall him mentioning being involved in something like that, about five years back,” Guiche said, cheerfully. “So what brings you to this forsaken town?”  
  
“I’m… looking for some people,” the older woman said, her words guarded. “I’ve found a few of them, but… there are a few left. I need to find them so the gh… before too long.”   
  
“Ah,” Guiche said confidently, taking in her muscled build and the horrific-looking burn scars on her face. “I understand.”  
  
“I don’t think you do,” the woman retorted coldly.  
  
“Perhaps,” the boy said, leaning over and whispering something in Kirche’s ear.   
  
The darker-skinned girl tilted her head, and nodded. “I think we might well be able to work together,” she told the older woman. “Guiche thinks you’re trustworthy and I’m inclined to say the same.”  
  
“That’s too kind,” the woman said, smiling and leaning closer to Kirche. “Would you mind if… there are watchers here,” she said, barely moving her lips. “If you will come with me to a backroom and your friends stay here, I will tell you what I have found out.”  
  
“I will see to Sylphid,” Tabitha announced, departing.  
  
Kirche and the older woman disappeared off, and the other mages returned to their table. “Guiche,” Montmorency hissed insistently. “I don’t trust this woman. Look how she’s acting! Especially around Kirche! And the way she dresses, and the way she acts in a manly way, and the way she doesn’t seem to have a sense of humour!”  
  
“It is a little strange,” he admitted, “and I suspect she does have a secret, but I’m sure she’ll be trustworthy against the dark presence that haunts this town.”  
  
“Oh good. It isn’t just me,” the blonde whispered. “And no, I’m not worried about that.”  
  
“I think she’s a Protestant. We’ll be careful,” Guiche whispered back. “We’ll just have to watch her for anti-clericalism and an aniconographic rejection of symbolic rejections of Brimir and the saints.”  
  
Monmon blinked. “Wait, what?”  
  
“If we’re not careful, she might try to lead us into heresy with a rejection of the wisdom of the church fathers and their interpretation of the holy texts based on well-established learning, in favour of an ill-educated reading which exults in the ignorance of barely literate peasants. She might even start insulting His Holiness, the Pope, in front of us.”  
  
“Uh…”  
  
“But we’re not interested in her theology, and she looks competent enough in a fight. Those kinds of commoner soldiers usually are; my father taught me about how to look for them and why we should reward such talent.”  
  
The girl sighed, and patted Guiche on the head. “You do that,” she said. “Watch her like a hawk. I just need to go to talk to someone who can grasp a hint,” she added, under her breath, as she went out to look for the last member of their party.  
  
She found the blue-haired girl feeding a pail full of meat to her dragon. Montmonrency wasn’t sure where the shorter girl had found all that raw meat, but she supposed that Tabitha had the capacity to find the kitchens herself when she didn’t have her nose in a book.  
  
“Tabitha?”  
  
“Oui?”  
  
“Have you seen something… off about this Agnès woman? You know, with how she dresses and how she acts around Kirche?”  
  
Tabitha nodded.  
  
“Oh, good, it isn’t just me.”  
  
“Oui. I think she may be an ‘uguenot. A Proteztant. Not sure.”   
  
Montmorency blinked. “Why did I go talk to you again?” she asked herself. “You don’t even catch Kirche’s innuendo.”  
  
“I am sorry? Kirche eez een what?”  
  
“Never mind, Tabitha.” Monmon slumped down. “You know what! I think I’ll just have another drink. And not so watered down this time. In fact, it’ll just be neat…”  
  
“No need for that!” Kirche announced from behind them, flanked by Guiche. “Just as well Tabby is checking the mounts; we’re going up to the circus tent right now! Agnès has found that there’s a nightly ‘festival’ where they do all kinds of wicked things, so we’ll go in and put a stop to it once and for all!”  
  
“Hurrah!” Guiche cheered.  
  
“Agnès?” Monmon asked, raising her eyebrows. “Are you on first name terms already?”  
  
“Yep! And yes, you were right, Guiche,” Kirche said cheerfully. “Hero, through and through. I’d trust her at my back.”  
  
“Told you,” the boy said, grinning. He put his hands on his hips, raising his chin and gazing off into the middle distance. “Let’s go turn this comedy of clowns… into a tragedy!”  
  
There was silence. It was the wrong time of year for crickets to chirrup, but had it been summer, there would have been crickets chirruping.  
  
“Yeah, let’s,” Kirche said, eventually.

* * *

Under the cover of darkness, five cloaked figures and one trying-to-be-sneaky dragon made their way up the hillside to the tent. After some complaints about the clattering and the trees which got knocked over, the dragon was told to stay behind, while Guiche’s mole familiar and Kirche’s salamander scouted ahead.  
  
Surprisingly, though, no traps lay in wait. There were guards waiting for them at the entrance to the tent, but Tabitha happened.  
  
“Zat eez all of them,” the tiny girl said, returning to the others. She wiped off her black-painted poniard on the snow. “Ze ground eez slippery zere; watch out.”  
  
“Good job, Tabby,” Kirche whispered. “So, swing in through one of the windows on these convenient ropes?”  
  
“Good idea,” said Guiche.  
  
“Veto,” said Monmon.  
  
Kirche muttered under her breath. “I never get to swing in on ropes,” she complained. And so she vented her frustration by setting alight the bears who tried to maul them when they charged through the main door. In deference to the theming, the bears had been wearing tutus, but as it turned out they burned especially well.  
  
The interior of the circus tent was a mad panorama of colours and noises. There a peasant was forced to try to swallow a sword; here a clown was throwing knives at a woman tied to a wheel; over there a seal – imported no doubt at great expense, because none lived on the north coast of Tristain – balanced a screaming child on its nose.  
  
And in the centre of this madhouse lounged a man in brightly coloured clothing, sitting on a grand throne. His chalk-white face was elaborately made up, and his green hair was braided with little grinning skulls. On the sight of the newcomers, he picked himself up, an utterly insane grin flashing across his face.  
  
“Mwhahahahahaha,” said the clown in a deadpan voice, and then gave a forced laugh. “Welcome to my show! I am the Capering Count of Canimar, King of Clean Killings and Callous Comedy! Can cows count contrary consumers? Can they?”  
  
The children and the chevalier exchanged confused looks. “No?” hedged Guiche, uneasily. “And… uh, what was that about…”  
  
“Correct!” said the man, honking his large red nose. “Do I have a show for you tonight!”  
  
“Do you?” asked Agnès.  
  
“Uh uh uh! That wasn’t a question!”  
  
“It sounded like a question.”  
  
“Well, it wasn’t! I think you’ll find it hilarious! In fact, you might just laugh yourself to…” and that was about all he managed, because Agnès drew her pistol and shot him in the head.  
  
There was a shocked silence, interrupted only by the scratching of a pencil as Tabitha quickly took notes.  
  
“Uh,” said Guiche.  
  
“What?” the scarred woman asked.  
  
“… aren’t you going to, you know… make a witty one-liner or something? Say something like ‘laugh this one off’? Or… well, if you’d hit him, you could have said something about a punchline.”  
  
“Why would I do that?” The woman sniffed, beginning to reload her pistol. “That kind of detestable humour is a weakness of papi… most people. Incidentally, there are multiple evil clowns staring at us in shock. Kill them.”  
  
“Oui,” Tabitha said quietly, and flicked her wand in the direction of a woman dressed in a harlequin’s outfit. The woman exploded in a hail of scything bloody ice which cut down most of the others. “Slyphid,” she added, raising her voice, and a dragon crashed through the roof, with a roar which sounded most peculiarly like ‘Om nom nom’.  
  
Guiche watched the carnage, his shoulders slumping. “Well, there’s really no point in me even making my golems,” he said sadly, watching as the dragon wolfed down a man who had been juggling burning torches. “They’d take too long to get over there and then the fun will be over.” He squared his shoulders. “Well, I’ll make them anyway! They’ll protect you fair maidens from any threats which might get behind us.”  
  
Kirche grinned.  
  
“Not a word,” Monmon said, warningly.  
  
“I said nothing.”  
  
“Oh, please. You were going to say something about not minding having a large threat behind you or something slatternly and filthy like that.”  
  
“Montmorency de la Montmorency,” Kirche said, her hand going to her mouth in fake shock, “such language! You wicked, sinful girl, speaking of such unmaidenly things!”  
  
“Why would you want for a threat to be behind you?” Tabitha asked. “Zat is a threat, a vulnerability? Bad.”  
  
“Quite so,” Agnès said, solidly, as she finished reloading her pistol. “The blue-haired girl… Tabitha, wasn’t it? She’s right. Always keep your foes in front of you.” She nodded. “I believe you can clean up the rest of them without my assistance.”  
  
“That’ll be easy,” Kirche said.  
  
The older woman nodded. “If you ever want to do adventurous things with me, without these others slowing you down, I keep a mail box in the capital, in the Charming Fairies Inn. It’s a disreputable place, but the owner is… strange, but honest,” she told Kirche. “We can have a little meet-up to talk some things over.”  
  
“Remember what I said earlier about my father looking for a new captain of the guard,” Kirche said. “From what I saw of you here, I’m even more impressed, and for all his many flaws, the role pays very well and he’s seldom at home. He looks for the best to protect his family in his absence, because he has a lot of enemies. When you’ve found the people you’re looking for, you should get in touch if you’re interested.”  
  
Agnès’ face twitched. “I think few would be interested in my bodyguarding services,” she said. “After all, I ‘failed’ with Princess Henrietta… though I can tell you one thing. They’re lying when they say she secretly snuck off and married the Albionese prince. I was with her when they said the marriage happened, chaperoning the two of them. There’s a reason I made myself scarce from court. I’m an inconvenience to the tale the Council tells.”  
  
“Wait, really?” Guiche interrupted, eyes widening. “You mean the allegations are…”  
  
The woman’s lips pursed. “I’ve said too much already,” she said. “Maybe I can talk further when I get my revenge, but for now? I don’t want to get involved in politics. It’ll get in my way.”  
  
“But you’re saying that…”  
  
“I’m not saying anything. Not yet,” she said, firmly. She glanced at Kirche, looking her up and down. “Get in touch,” she said, dropping her voice. “And don’t trust the Council. Or the Church. The rot of Evil goes into high places, now they have removed Cardinal Mazarin – known to all to be a righteous man, one who thwarted the wiles of the King of the Abyss – from his place. Keep your own council, ladies, Gramont, and stay wary!”  
  
“You know,” Kirche said, as they watched the scarred woman leave, “I’m starting to suspect she’s a Protestant. Why else would she speak out against the Church like that? It seems to be something very personal with her. What could have set her against our Holy Mother Church like that? I dread to think.” She shook her head sadly. “And of course, there is the way she dresses."


	28. In Another Castle 6-1

“ _Dearest, sweetest cousin. I have received a most distressing message recently. Apparently, the duc d’Normandie has not been paying his taxes recently, and has also been consorting with bandit lords and practitioners of vile magics. Now, as I am kind and good, we have come to an arrangement where we recoup his withheld taxes and he promises not to do it again. As you are an evil black-hearted fiend, I expect you will make an example of him and his family, with your customary discretion and lack of traceability. Because you are loathsome and get a sick thrill out of murder, no doubt there will be no survivors. May God have mercy on your black soul for the dreadful things you will do._ ”  
  
– Princess Isabella of the House of Bourbon, heir-selective to the throne of Gallia, speaking to her cousin

* * *

She was falling. Above her, Albion was burning, and she was falling wrapped in flames. By her hand, the Albionese fleet was burning and she had left the streets of the port choked with bodies and even as she fell, she laughed. The glee at watching the Albionese traitors run and scream was almost beyond words.  
  
Louise de la Vallière sat bolt upright in bed, panting. Groggily, she rubbed her eyes against the sleeve of her nightdress and peered around looking for any clue of what time it was. She needed to get a clock, she realised. Rolling out of bed and padding over to the window, she unbolted the shutters and looked outside, over the frozen, snow-covered swamps under the light of the moons. Well, it was still dark outside. And… she knew she really should move her quarters down so she was not living in the stump of the ruined tower, but… she liked daylight. She liked being able to look out of her window in the morning.  
  
But argh, it wasn’t safe up here. Not now that she was a moderately famous name among the Forces of Evil. And she really should be more worried about evil, wicked assassins coming for her. Or heroes who didn’t realise she was really doing good things. Or even vampires.  
  
Her eyes refocused on the icy landscape before her, and she realised why vampires had come to mind.  
  
“Catt?” she called out, over at the pale white shape floating down over the snow. “Is that you?”  
  
“Yep!” her sister called back.  
  
“… what are you doing out there?”  
  
Her sister lifted up a wolf puppy. “Pierre was whining like he needed to do his business, so I’m taking him outside to find a tree so he can do his wolfy things.”  
  
Louise stared blankly into the middle distance for a while, as she contemplated her bare-footed, nightgowned sister flying around, holding a wolf at arm’s length. “Uh… very good. Carry on.” It was cold outside, and the chill had cleared her head somewhat, so she closed and bolted her shutter again, heading back to bed. She was clearly still recovering from her trip to the Abyss, and the way the day-night cycle had not quite been the same there. She lay back down, staring at the ceiling, mind a whir. Maybe she should see if she could afford some kind of… portal or something which she could put over her window and still manage to get sunlight and fresh air through it, while not being in a vulnerable bit of the tower.  
  
She also needed to take some of Emperor Lee’s advice and get magical protections against fire, lightning, wind, earth, poison, disease, crippling, surprise attacks, water, blood, necrotic energy…  
  
The recitation of ways that people might try to kill her lulled her to sleep, like she was counting sheep, and once more she dreamed.  
  
Long ago, before the dark ocean of the Great North Sea drowned the tainted soil of Doggerland, before Albion was snatched up from the earth where it had rested for uncounted aeons and cast into the sky, before the Markay were cast from their homelands by a Great Evil, before even the deep halls of Zazzergargh were left hollow and dead by the death of their makers… ah, that was a different world!  
  
In that time, the dragons, kings over men, ruled over the northern territories while to the south dwelt the elves, who roamed the lush green landscape along with their bastard children, and to the east dwarvenkind dwelt in their mountainous retreats. There was harmony, and peace, and everyone got along and fluffy bunnies and ponies frolicked in glades untouched by mortal hands and other things of that ilk.  
  
All in all, it was disgustingly saccharine.  
  
It was then, however, that many say that Evil first entered the world. The people who say that are wrong. Evil was there all along. It dwelt in the heart of the dwarves, who stared at the untapped seams of any land which had not felt their touch. It dwelt in the hearts of the dragons, who longed to have the precious things that were forged by the lesser races, to bring them under their dominion and reign unchallenged. It dwelt in the hearts of the elves, judging others as inferior and longing to correct their misdeeds and actions.  
  
And in the hearts of men, it came to full flower. For men were the least of the races. They worked day and night in the service of the dragons, and they came to hate them. Their tribes were inferior, weak, prey in the jungles of the elves and the plains of what is now known as the Holy Land. And in the mountains of the dwarves they did what those diminutive goldlovers would not do; they carried out backbreaking labour, farming and fishing and feeding their lords in their fortresses.  
  
In what is now Albion, back when it did was seated in the earth, there arose the first Overlord! Clad in armour forged of the bones of the dragon-lords he had cast down, he raised his mace, and ten thousand hands raised their weapons high. Traitors smashed the eggs of the dragon lords. Dragon eggs make wonderful omelets, especially when salted with the tears of their parents. Vast towers were built with stolen magical secrets, radiating Evil over the land and as it sank in, the world itself learned to hate and fear.  
  
The first vampires and necromancers called forth the spirits of the dragons they slew to fight their kin on equal terms. Animals were slaughtered en-masse, harvesting their life force to power his dark machines. The First Overlord even broke the seals on the Abyss, calling forth hordes of demons and binding the denizens of the Abyss into unbreakable contracts to serve those who addressed them with the correct words.  
  
The dragons fought back. Proud they were; proud and cruel by nature, but this war fed all their worst instincts. They refused to call for help from the magical races, and instead drew on the new Evil energies of the land. Their greed, their envy blossomed, and the forces of the Overlord died in horrible and imaginative ways, but it was too little, too late. The dragons were scattered and they were poisoned by Evil. Forever after, they would be tyrants with envious hearts, too slothful to reclaim what they had lost.  
  
Their fall did not go unnoticed! A last alliance was forged! An alliance of men, elves, dragons, markay, dwarves, and even a few halflings who had got caught up in the whole thing, possibly because they wandered into the planning tent when trying to find the kitchen! They would take the greatest, the boldest of the Heroes of their races, and they would slay the Overlord! They would cast down his towers, break down his wicked spires and restore righteousness to the land, no matter the cost!  
  
What a bunch of fools!  
  
And so it came to pass that…  
  
Louise opened her eyes groggily. It was light now, though the pink tinge sinking through the windows indicated that either she had been sleep-setting-the-countryside-on-fire, or it was dawn. Rolling over in bed, she came face to face with Gnarl, who was sitting on a stool by her bed with a book on his lap.  
  
“Ah. Good morning, your evilness,” Gnarl said, without a trace of shame. “The sun is up, and cheery little birds are singing. Why don’t we go and burn them all to death?”  
  
Louise worked her jaw. Eventually, she managed, “H-have you been reading stories to me when I’m asleep?”  
  
“Your wickedness, I would not lie to you,” Gnarl said happily.  
  
There was a pause.  
  
“I can’t help but notice you didn’t answer the question,” Louise said, stifling a yawn.  
  
“Your malevolence, what a thing to say!”  
  
“You still haven’t answered the… what are you doing in my room!” Louise snapped, suddenly much more awake and gathering her covers up around her. “Get out!”  
  
“I have begun work on bringing the forge up to proto-operational state, in preparation for your new forgemistress to outfit as she sees fit,” Gnarl said, slipping off his stool.  
  
“G-get out! Right now!” Louise began to search around for a hairbrush to throw at him, but by the time she found a comb he had already vanished. Sitting up, the dark evil force of evil darkness and evil rubbed her tired eyes on her sleeve, and yawned.  
  
Another day, another bunch of secretly good deeds to do in the face of her insubordinate and improper minions, it seemed.

* * *

In her grand ceremonial dining hall, attended by hordes of loyal minions wearing various uniforms stolen from perfectly innocent commoners, Louise picked at her breakfast.  
  
“Wine for the overlady?” asked a blue-skinned minion, its manner a perverse mockery of the butler’s uniform it was wearing.  
  
The girl sleepily stared at the creature, getting her thoughts in gear. “Yes, but only one part in five,” she said. She blinked. “And boil the water!” she added hastily. “I can’t emphasise that enough! And if I get frogspawn in it again, everyone on kitchen duty is getting tortured!”  
  
The blue minion managed a grin which would be described as sheepish, if sheep looked like minions, and quickly concealed the clay jug of water behind its back. “I go get fresh water right now!” it squeaked, running off.  
  
Louise nodded firmly. Good. They were learning. Or at least they accepted her threats were meant seriously.  
  
An inchoate moaning, the dull groan of a damn’d soul who wandered the earth, marked the arrival of a denizen of the Abyss. Icepack held to her head, looking decidedly worse for wear, Jessica stumbled in looking miserable. “Mor’in’,” she managed.  
  
“Good morning,” Louise said. The sight of such misery, such suffering, such self-inflicted pain made her feel better just looking at it. “You look terrible.”  
  
“I feel terrible,” the other girl groaned, slumping down in one of the high-backed chairs in the dining hall. “I never norm’ly get like this. I always handle my booze very well.”  
  
“Mmm hmm,” Louise said, explicitly not saying anything else.  
  
“… are you judging me?”  
  
“Not at all,” lied Louise, who totally was judging her.  
  
“Urgh. So mean.”  
  
Jessica was wearing a baggy buttonless white shirt, short in the arms, festooned with a burning red demonic inscription. She was clearly confused and suffering, Louise felt, because she had either been wearing such a thing to bed, or changed from her proper nightgown and forgotten to put anything on her bottom half. When the shirt rode up, Louise could see her underthings. It was moderately utterly shameful.  
  
But then again, Jessica had been raised by a demon. She was clearly lacking in certain standards of decency. Louise would just have to teach her in the time they spent together.  
  
“Are you cold?” she asked. “And… what _is_ that that you’re wearing?”  
  
“Do you have a problem with my t-shirt?” Jessica asked. “Oh… is it the writing? I dunno; I felt it was pretty funny. Because, you know. I have horns and… well, not right now, but when they’re out, it’s asking if you’re as…” she trailed off. “Ow, my head,” she concluded, clutching the icepack tighter.  
  
“Don’t you have a nightgown?” Louise said primly.  
  
Jessica stared back at her blankly.  
  
“Wouldn’t you say you’re showing rather too much leg?”  
  
Jessica continued to stare. “Hey, where’s your fridge?” she asked, obviously giving up on trying to understand Louise. “What’ve you got in the way of cereal here?”  
  
“Serial what?”  
  
“Any muesli?” Jessica asked hopefully. “Please tell me you have coffee at least.”  
  
“Muesli? What’s that? And… no, no coffee. It’s… a bit expensive, given it has to come all the way from Ind or Rub al-Khali, and I don’t like it.” Louise paused. “I have tea, because the minions drink it,” she said. “I’m having black sausage and bacon. Well, and rye bread. And… well, the mushrooms are called ‘Bloody Hellspawn Fingers’ according to the book, but they grow down in the tunnels and really aren’t that bad. And they’re not poisonous. Even if they do taste a bit metallic.”  
  
Jessica sighed. “Oh dear,” she said, looking Louise up and down. “Of course, you probably never ever have to worry about your weight, do you? You’re lucky there. And your sister feeds off the blood of the living, so she doesn’t keep cereal or stuff like that around. I… I guess I can have some sausage and bread. But no bacon. I’ll need to go shopping to pick up some food. So what’s the cupboard arrangement here?”  
  
“I beg your pardon?” Louise looked around. “Uh… well, uh, Catt gets her own food and I just have a coldroom.”  
  
“Oh, man, I’ll need to get a fridge, then,” Jessica said, wrinkling her nose. “And a cupboard. And an ice demon to bleed behind the fridge, obviously.” The older girl stretched, neck clicking. “So, about… oh, you’re having wine? Okay, I’ll have that too.” She caught Louise’s disapproving glance. “What? I was going to have it diluted! Half-and-half!”  
  
Well, she had brought this on herself, Louise was forced to concede. She had wanted there to be other people here at the tower so she had intelligent conversation which wasn’t Gnarl. And while Gnarl could provide intelligent conversation, he was both frightfully evil, and, she suspected, smarter than she was. Which was more than a little disturbing, because he was a goblin-thing.  
  
Perhaps he had stolen the Lord’s allocation of brains for the rest of his species. She wouldn’t put it past him.  
  
But now she had people more like her – well, not entirely like her, because one of them was a rather peculiar half-demon hell-princess who got all mannish when she got flustered and the other was her kind, sweet, nice older sister who just happened, in the best possible sense of the word, to be a bloodsucking monster – and she’d have to get used to having non-Minions around.  
  
She worked on trying to eat what she could, while Jessica made a fuss about her hangover. Yes, technically speaking it was a blasphemy against all that was right and proper that the other girl only had a hangover from drinking enough to kill a normal human being, but she was still being awfully loud about it. Also, it was her own fault. Louise stabbed her sausage, working the fork in, and took a vindictive bite from it.  
  
Wait. No! Those were evil thoughts! About someone on her own side! She shouldn’t do that!  
  
Even if it was Jessica’s fault for drinking so heavily. Which was a sin – in fact, it was two sins, Excess and Gluttony – so frowning on her actions was a good thing to do. But she was… argh! No! How could she be caught in a moral conflict here! That wasn’t fair! How was she meant to take schadenfreude – that word was one of the few useful things to come from Germania – from the suffering of a sinner when she also was meant to not think mean things?  
  
Any further moral debate was cut short by Maxy showing up in his floppy hat, trailed by two subordinate minions. “Overlady,” the brown announced, “present for you! It arrive through the heart! I do the reading of the symbols and it say it from person called Lee.”  
  
Louise blushed. A present? From Emperor Lee?  
  
Wait. A present. From Emperor Lee? “Stay there,” she told Maxy, “and get some blues handy.” She rose to her feet quickly, grabbed Jessica by the hand, and pulled the other girl out of the room. She wanted at least a solid stone wall between her and the result of opening that box. “Okay, open it for me!” she called out.  
  
“Open it!” Maxy, standing beside her, called out.  
  
There was crack of lightning, and a boom. Louise nodded solidly. One of the things the Cathayan Emperor had mentioned to her during a dance was how people who opened presents themselves were… what were the words he had used, ‘objectively suboptimal’? Probably. He had used those words about a lot of things. Now she could go and… “Check it again!” she yelled, to any minions still in the room.  
  
“Aww!” a minion called back. “No more pretty boomies!”  
  
“Sparky magic rock taste funny!”  
  
“Oooh! I wants a go licking it! Hee hee hee! Funny sparky rock!”  
  
Louise risked poking her head back in. Well. Breakfast was ruined, that was for sure. “I thought I told you to stay there,” she said to Maxy.  
  
The brown looked hurt. “I here to protect you, overlady,” he said. “What if… secret ambush planned when you was getting away from explody box?”  
  
The overlady stared down at the minion. “And it’s not at all that you suspected that it was a trap and so you wanted other minions to open it,” she said, wryly.  
  
“Nah, minions aren’t that bright,” Jessica said. “Also, they don’t know the meaning of the word ‘fear’. Not that that means much, of course.”  
  
“Yep!” Maxy said cheerfully. “I clearly too stoopid to not want to get revival headache. I just love them. Mmm mmm. I… I just too worried for overlady and so loyal that I miss fun of being blown up because I want to keep her safe!”  
  
“Well,” Louise said, “I think you should go check the box right now. And because it’s clearly safe, after that’s done, you may bring it to me.”  
  
She did smirk somewhat at the way that Maxy poked the lid open with the nearest thing he could find, which was the severed hand of a minion, and gingerly looked at it. The brown’s eyes lit up, and he came scampering over to Louise. “Present! For you!” he announced.  
  
Louise read the card.  
  
“To the Steel Maiden,  
Congratulations. If you are still alive, you are worthy of respect. You would not believe how many fools just open presents from an emperor. Contained within is everything I have ever promised you. I look forwards to meeting with you again. Perhaps for dinner.  
His Imperial Majesty,  
  
Emperor Lee”  
  
Under the card was a human head, coated in… in what looked to be gold leaf. With the eyes replaced with carefully sculpted jade orbs. It was the impertinent translator’s head. Not his eyes, though. They hadn’t been jade before.  
  
“Oh my dark gods!” Jessica said enthusiastically. “He sent you a head? Of someone who offended you? That’s so romantic! If you don’t want him, can I have him?”  
  
“What,” said Louise flatly, feeling sick. “You want the head?”  
  
“No, silly! The emperor!”  
  
“Uh…”  
  
“You know, if he keeps on giving you heads, you might want to consider returning the favour, if you know what I mean,” Jessica said, raising her eyebrows suggestively.  
  
“I… should find someone who’s annoyed him and send him their head?” Louise asked. “But I didn’t… he just killed the translator and sent me his head! I don’t want to give him heads. There’s… th-there’s plenty of things far more appropriate! And not… d-disgusting!”  
  
“Well, yeah, it’s a big step in a relationship and you should only give heads if you’re really going solid,” Jessica agreed. “I guess you only did meet him at the party for the first time. But still, seriously, if you do decide you don’t want him, tell me. I probably don’t have a chance with an emperor, but it’s still nice to dream! Especially when he gets such romantic gifts.”  
  
“Fine,” Louise said diplomatically, her cheeks flaming. “Well. Uh.”  
  
She remembered something, and really, really wanted to change the topic.  
  
“Oh yes, Gnarl said this morning that he’s bringing the forge back into condition and you’d probably want to spend time down there getting… you know, it set up how you like it. I’ll tell the minions to help you, but, you know, the trick is to treat them like they’re particularly stupid peasants, so you’ll probably,” she yawned, “probably want to wear metal boots or something in case you need to give some of them a kicking.” She winced in remembered pain. “They have very hard skulls. I’ll be in my planning room, working on… something. And if you see Catt before I do, tell her to come see me. I’ll want to talk with her.”

* * *

It was late afternoon when Cattleya made her way up from the depths of the dungeons where she slept, rubbing her eyes. “Urgh,” she said, “I’m feeling really rotten. And not just because of that demon blood, or the way she’d been drinking so I have a second-hand hangover. My body feels all cold and… and I had to even teach myself how to handle my blood freezing! Good afternoon!”  
  
Louise looked up from the tome on black magic she had been flicking through. “Afternoon,” she said, distractedly, making an annotation on the sheet of paper beside her.  
  
“The Abyss played heck with my body clock,” Cattleya said. “The way there’s no real sun and so I can be awake all the time there? No thank you! It’s probably going to take me a week to get back in out of synch so I’m not trying to go to sleep at dawn and waking up at dusk!” She smiled, showing a hint of fang. “Though Anne missed me and was very enthusiastic to see me again.” The smile turned into a frown. “She’s spending a lot of time with the minions, though, so I had to make her bathe. They are adorable, Louise, but they are sort of pongy!” Cattleya plonked herself down in a comfy chair, crossing her legs. “So what’d you want me for?” she asked, bouncing up and down.  
  
Standing up, Louise folded her hands behind her back and momentarily cursed the fact that she wasn’t wearing her armour. These dresses may have been wonderfully slinky and dark, but she felt better giving orders when she had a protective layer of steel plating. And high heels, of course. “I have spent most of the morning and this afternoon working on my plans to capture Princess Henrietta and bring her here, where she’ll be safe and out of the Council’s hands,” she began.  
  
“Yay!” said Cattleya. “Go us!”  
  
“… do you mind? I’m trying to explain here!”  
  
“Sorry! I’ll try to save the applause for the end.”  
  
Louise cleared her throat and started again. “The princess is confined to her rooms in the palace in the inner city of Bruxelles. This is a heavily defended and fortified location, and there are… you know, guards and magical warding and the like. That’s bad… good… something we don’t want. However, over the last month or so, my strategic situation has changed radically.”  
  
“Because me and now Jess have joined you,” Cattleya said, knowingly. “Also, you’re sounding an awful lot like Father! Well done!”  
  
“… I have been reading some of his books, yes,” Louise admitted. She spun on her toe, and headed over to the pinned-up maps. The map room was still broken, despite Gnarl’s promises that it would be working soon. “There was a chapter on ‘How to rescue damsels when you cannot carry out a direct assault’. It was much more useful than the von Zerbst one, which didn’t seem to even accept that you might not want to swing in through the largest window on a rope or silly things like that.” Louise glowered at the thought. “But, getting back to the…”  
  
“And… I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it, but you’ve grown and kind of filled out a bit!” Cattleya said, refusing to give up on her previous tangent. “Not much; a bit, but still! When you’re in the armour but don’t have the spikey helmet on, you’re looking a bit more like Mother!”  
  
Louise blushed. “We’re going off topic,” she said, hastily, flattered despite the ‘not much’. “The _point_ is,” she said, “I can now begin working on plans to capture the princess. I have a date. The best day to strike will be the day of the Springtime Summoning Ritual. Not only will there be fewer watchers around, but it’s a sacred day to the Founder and so since we’re doing this to keep the Princess, one of his descendants, safe, we should have additional favour.”  
  
Cattleya raised her hand. “Um… what if he frowns upon a vampire, a half-demon, some goblins and an overlady trying to kidnap a princess?”  
  
“Nonsense,” Louise said, confidently. “The Lord sees into the hearts of all men, and he’ll know that we’re doing it to protect her. And with the secret way in you discovered at the party, we can now get into the palace without having to go past the guards and the like. That means we can, if we can get a proper plan, make Henrietta simply _vanish_ from captivity and embarrass the Council greatly!”  
  
“And also not get cut into lots and lots of itty bitty chunks by elite palace guards, which would be a pain for me and just kill you dead!”  
  
“… thank you for that, Catt,” Louise said, shuddering. “I have established several steps we will require for my draft plan. I already have a windship, and I will need to go with Jessica to scout out the Abyss under the palace to find where the rift entrance is, but the greatest problem we have right now is that the tower does not have the power or range to reach the portal gate near the palace.” She threw her hand out dramatically, pointing at the map. “This is a problem, because we haven’t won until we get Henrietta into the portal! And I really, really don’t want to be chased for several days ride by… like, griffins and dragons and the like when we’re trying to get away.”  
  
“Dragons breathe fire. Well, fire dragons do. They’re utterly horrid creatures,” Cattleya said firmly. “Anything that avoids firebreathing dragons and also being chased in daylight, I’m in favour of.”  
  
“Luckily, from the repaired bit of the tower heart I got from the Bloody Duke, I can bring one of the lesser towers online if I can get to it. All I have to do is touch it with the Gauntlet,” Louise tapped her wrist, “and it’ll be under my control. Moreover! I paid Jessica’s father for information on the location of that tower, and it’s under the control of a lower-class necromancer without two ecus to his name.” Louise sneered. “The fool seems to just be using it as a high place for lightning strikes while he tries to bring bodies to true life. By eliminating him, not only do we get the tower back, but we’ll be able to stop the attacks on nearby villages which might draw Heroic attention to the tower.” She paused. “Also, he kills commoners and that’s bad,” she added.  
  
Cattleya pursed her lips. “So! What does the necromancer have on his side?” she asked.  
  
“Uh…” Louise rummaged through some papers, “some bandits who work for him, some flesh-monsters, some zombies, and his familiar is a winged horse. He’s a water mage, but he’s also shown a talent for wind magic.”  
  
“Sounds tasty,” her sister said dreamily. “I was hoping he had some vampires because vampires are just the best! But that sounds nice enough. Oooh! If I save the winged horse’s life, I can take it back and my unicorn can have a friend!”  
  
“Your…” Louise paled. “The unicorn’s still alive?”  
  
Cattleya wobbled her hand uncertainly. “Mostly alive,” she said, cheerfully. “I mean, alive, dead, it’s all a bit fuzzy! You know, like kittens! They’re fuzzy too!”  
  
The overlady looked her in the face. “Cattleya,” she said, “answer this truthfully. Are we in danger of a vampire unicorn breaking free and trying to drain the blood of the living?”  
  
“Nope! Almost certainly not! Hardly at all! It’s still mostly alive! It’s just a bit… corpsy! Anyway, Jess and I didn’t take _all_ of its blood and I gave it some back and now it’s all friendly because it knows that if it starts being mean again and trying to impale me, it’ll be punished for being naughty! Also, you know, it’s still missing a few legs so even if – through really bad luck – it escaped and started trying to kill us, it could only hobble!”  
  
Louise let out a sigh. “Fine. Well, the point is, the first step of the plan is to recapture the lesser tower, so we can get to the capital directly. I’ve been thinking of the fastest way of taking down the tower – because if we can kill the necromancer, that means his constructs won’t be controlled any more, and since it’s a tower and you can fly, you can get up to the top and get in that way.”  
  
Cattleya raised a hand sheepishly. “Uh, you know I can’t go into houses without someone inside letting me in, right?” she asked.  
  
“That is why you will take a minion with you, who you can let in and then they can invite you in,” Louise said smugly, stepping away from the map to perch on a chest. “I think about such things. Which means all I need to do is to get you onto the island the tower is on.  
  
“An island?” Cattleya echoed.  
  
“Yes, it’s on a tributary of the Senne.”  
  
“That’s… flowing water,” Cattleya said, cautiously. “I can’t cross that.”  
  
“Correct,” Louise said. She smirked. “However, I have invented a way to get you onto the island, which should allow you to silently take out the necromancer and so leave him and his forces leaderless.” She patted the sea-chest she was sitting on. “I’ve had it packed with grave-earth, too, but I want to see if you can fit. If you can, blues can drag you over.”  
  
“Uh.” Her sister frowned. “I don’t follow.”  
  
“Get in the box, Catt.”


	29. In Another Castle 6-2

“ _Succubae, as I have already imparted, are wicked female temptresses who I have studied long and hard, with holy vigour; the better to fight their uxorious deceit. These fiends breed true, spawning daughters who are just the same as them! They claim that a strong-willed or powerful father leaves the offspring more human, but they lie! They will even claim that a young succubus is a Hero’s daughter – even your own! – if it helps their vile cause; do not trust their lying female tongues! And though the always-male progeny of incubi often appear more human, do not trust them when they say that it is because the child grows in a mortal womb! I may have spent far less time inuring myself to their lies, but I know that it is another falsehood! It is just because the wickedness of the woman allows the child to pretend to be human more convincingly, but know this; all the evil of their mother dwells in their heart!_ ”  
  
– Pope Aegis X, “Lectures on the Wickedness of Women, Part XXXI”

* * *

It was a dark and somewhat cloudy night. Clearer skies seemed to be moving in from the east, but they would not arrive until early morning.   
  
It was also punishingly cold. Dressed in her full plate armour, Louise shivered and huddled closer to the tiny fire in a pit she had her minions dig for her. She couldn’t have a proper fire which would warm her up, oh no, because that would risk being seen by the patrolling flesh golems on the island. And it was the depths of winter and her demon-forged plate just wasn’t warm enough to be out in this kind of temperature. She could see her breath coming out in great smoke-like clouds.  
  
Oh, she just _bet_ Heroes never had to be out in weather like this, carrying out deeds which from a certain point of view would be considered dark. They probably got to… to carry burning torches into nice warm dungeons. They didn’t have to put up with the nerve-wrecking experience of waiting for their sister to report that she had got safely onto an island home to a wicked necromancer, knowing that if anything went wrong Cattleya would be ashes.  
  
She wrapped her scarf tighter over her mouth and nose, and huddled down, trying to read by firelight.  
  
“Despite the obvious utility of this ritual,” she read, “it is excessively aggravating to cast. The ritual components are expensive and hard to procure; though it only needs a drop of blood from a virgin, she must be of the highest breeding and carry a royal bloodline. I recommend kidnapping a child from such a family; she can serve you well as a source of blood for such rituals for many a long year, though she must be guarded with great force.”   
  
Louise frowned. “That’s stupid,” she said, scornfully. “Why would you need to go to all those lengths when you can just use your own blood? And why does it have to be a girl, anyway? Boys can be… um, pure just as well!” She shook her head sadly. Many of these books were very silly, and they always had to complicate things. All she wanted was a spell to make people ignore things it was cast on.   
  
Of course, Gnarl said she had a true genius for evil magic and was very gifted at working out which bits of a ritual were actually needed and which were the posturing of some long-dead inadequacy – well, he hadn’t quite said that, but she preferred her way of putting it – but it just wasn’t that hard, surely?  
  
“ _Sis!_ ” crackled her Gauntlet. “ _You there?_ ”  
  
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Where else would I be?” she told her older sister.  
  
“ _Well, the box is open and I’m out and still alive. Well, dead. Well, undead,_ ” Catt said cheerfully. “ _That’s good. That’d be a nasty way to go, because I couldn’t move at all over the water and when you’re a mist, not moving feels really strange, you know?_ ”  
  
“No, Catt,” Louise said, “I’ve never been a mist.”  
  
“ _Oh. Well, you certainly should try it if you can! It’s all liberating, like running around in just your chemise! Anyway, on my way! I’ll go take out the nasty, nasty necromancer and… oooh. I think I can see some boats on the other side, so you can probably move some of the cute blue ones to drag it back, right?_ ”  
  
“I will, Catt,” Louise said, sighing in relief – and just a hint of frustration. She loved her sister dearly, she really did, even though she was a member of the damned living dead. But goodness, she could be flighty and distractible. And Louise had worked really hard on this plan and just wanted it over and done with. “Minions,” she ordered, “wait until I give the orders before you go out to…” she let out a slow breath, “… to loot the boats.”  
  
“Awww.”  
  
“And also only blues are to do the looting, because water is involved,” she quickly added, before returning to her book.

* * *

Feet planted flat on the ceiling, only one thing was on Cattleya’s mind. Unusually, it was neither related to animals nor an all-consuming thirst for the blood of the living. It was, instead, related to the fact that her new dress may have looked gorgeous, but it really was not very practical when one’s body was not aligned with gravity.  
  
She was definitely going to have to talk to Jessica about this after this was over. The worst thing was her veil, because it was on the edge of departing her head entirely. The entire set-up simply wasn’t working well with her long hair. At least there was something keeping her skirts in a decent manner, but even then gravity was certainly fighting them. And the less said about the uncomfortable feelings in her chest region from insufficient support when inverted, the better.  
  
No one ever thought of the demands of being a female vampire standing on the ceiling. It was so horrid.  
  
The person – no, wait, they probably counted as a ‘body’ now – she had grabbed convulsed spasmodically, flesh shrunken and desiccated. Yes, that was another thing. Drinking upside down was something she had almost no experience with. She was having to think about how all those muscles in her throat worked and control them personally to make the blood go upward.  
  
Now, where to hide the corpse? She should probably find somewhere her sister wouldn’t look for it, because Cattleya was entirely aware that Louise wasn’t entirely comfortable with the whole ‘superpredator’ thing which was a sign that Mother and Father had done a good job with her. She really was very proud of her little sister; even when she was a technically treasonous evil overlady, she acted in the proper way most of the time! She had the right standards, even if she was doing the wrong things – but for the right reasons, Cattleya hastened to add.  
  
She paused, holding still while the other patrolling guard passed under her. Hmm. Maybe if she started carrying some kind of cord or rope with her, she could tie bodies up to the ceiling. That’d do a jolly good job of keeping them hidden, because people never looked up.  
  
The guard looked up.  
  
“What the hell is tha _arrrrrrrrgh!_ ”  
  
The scream was awfully loud, and Cattleya winced. It was immediately followed by the clanging of alarm bells.   
  
Oopsy-daisy. Well. Sugar. Sugar, sugar, sugar.  
  
“That no was well done,” the blue minion she had placed up on the rafter – Scyl, that was his name – said. “Maybe you should try do do-over so you not get seen?”  
  
Yes, that would be nice, Cattleya considered. But that wasn’t something she could do.  
  
Oh well. Time for Plan B. Well, it wasn’t the real Plan B, because Louise had actually devised a Plan B. But that Plan B assumed that she hadn’t accidentally set off all the alarms. So instead it was going to be her own super-special Plan B which totally would be the tastiest Plan B ever.

* * *

Louise blanched at the walls. And the ceiling. And the floor. And also at the bodies.   
  
This last involved quite a lot of the first three. The bodies were strewn… around the place. Generally hanging about.  
  
“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” Cattleya said, wincing slightly, “but in my defence, it turned out that the flesh golem-thingies were totally horrible-tasting and also that those men with the windstone gun thingies were shooting lightning at them and that made them heal so I sort of had to tear them limb from limb and there was an awful lot of blood in them.”  
  
Slightly unsteadily, the overlady made her way to the window, gulping in the fresh air.  
  
“And and and! In my defence, like… over half the torn apart bodies here were totally here when I got here! None of the bodies on the autopsy tables were caused by me! Uh, except that one, and he just fell on it when I tore his throat out, he isn’t _strapped_ to it. And only one of the ones with all the scissors stabbed into it was me, and again, in my defence, that one had a windstone in its body so it was healing constantly and so I just had to tear out the windstone!”  
  
“Catt,” Louise grated out, “you were just meant to… to fly to the top of the tower and take down the necromancer!”  
  
“I did! I did it right after I accidentally got seen! He wasn’t there! And then I had to go through the entire place, looking for him! And then in every room there were more of these fleshy golem things made of dead women and they kept on hurting me so then I had to go hunt down the living guards so I could heal and then I tried calling some puppies to help me but there weren’t any wolves on the island so there were lots of them and… oh, oops, are you angry about the revenant-things? Because that… um, was kind of my fault. But but but! I can explain! I needed some help because there really weren’t any guards left and I didn’t have any of your adorable minions around apart from Scyl who I put somewhere safe and there were lots and lots of flesh golems, so I sort of fed some of the dead guards my blood and made some revenants!”   
  
“I am _not pleased_ you have been making other vampires, no,” Louise said.  
  
“But it’s totally okay! They’re not really real vampires! They’re more like… you know, zombies or skeletons or stuff like that! See, according to the books… when you feed someone who’s already dead vampire blood the soul has already passed on, so you just get a walking, still rotting corpse which is the slave of their master! It’s not like I’m damning any souls or anything or forcing anyone else to suffer the same unending existence as me!” Cattleya paused, possibly for breath. “I’ll just tell them to jump in the water once it’s all okay! In fact, I’ll do it right now!   
  
“I’m still not pleased,” Louise said, glowering, “but… Catt, from now on, if you want help, _talk to me_. Or… um, have your animals help you. I really don’t want to see,” she gestured around at the pale, glowing-eyed, fanged corpses her sister was controlling, “any more of these _things_.”  
  
“I understand,” Cattleya said softly, before perking up. “And I totally found the necromancer in the end in the stables, trying to saddle up his winged horse!”  
  
Louise nodded. She had been presented with the tied up maimed winged horse, and the head of the necromancer when she had landed. And then she had needed to explain to her sister that no, she did not have a thing for heads, and no, she had not asked for one for a present from the Emperor of Cathay, and so no, she did not want a head. She didn’t even know how her older sister had found out about that. Shaking her head, she tapped her gauntlet. Anything was better than thinking about what had happened here.  
  
“Gnarl?” she asked. “Have you identified what the magic staff does yet?”  
  
“ _Mmm… hmm… oh, these are very fine cockroaches… oh! Oh yes, your evilness. Yes, I do believe I know what it is. It’s a fairly typical staff which might be used by,_ ” Gnarl sniffed, “ _a middling to below-average necromancer. Notice the lead coating, and it seems very likely it’ll have an iron core, which serves to amplify the affinity for deathly magics. I do believe it will allow a necromancer to control more of the living dead, and possibly allow him to cast slightly more dangerous spells._ ”  
  
“I’m not a necromancer,” Louise said flatly.  
  
“ _Indeed not, your evilness._ ”  
  
“Argh!” Louise groaned. “Why wouldn’t he have been carrying some kind of magic staff which was actually useful for the sort of magic I do? I’m not a necromancer! I don’t do necromancy! I never want to do necromancy!”  
  
Cattleya raised a hand. “Yeah! Why on earth would a necromancer have a staff which is made to help him cast necromancy spells more easily?” she said.  
  
Louise shot her a flat glare. “Are you making fun of me?” she demanded. She glowered at her sister. “You’re going to need a bath when we get home,” she told Cattleya bluntly, “because you smell like a butchery.”  
  
“I know. You’re… you’re not too angry with me?” Cattleya asked, biting her lip.  
  
“A bit,” Louise said. “You _were_ just meant to eliminate the necromancer and… well, what’s done is done.” She sighed.   
  
“And yes, I was poking fun at you a bit,” her sister admitted. “You are being just a teeny bit silly. And for my part at least, I’m rather glad that he wasn’t carrying a staff which makes him better at doing the sort of magic you do, because you’re rather fond of using scary burny fire on everything and anything which gets in your way. For your information, he had quite enough flaming torches around, you know!”  
  
The overlady blushed. “Oh yes,” she said. “I didn’t think about that.” She crossed her arms. “It’s a silly staff, anyway. I didn’t want it. Look at the tasteless horned skull on the top.”  
  
“Garish,” Cattleya agreed. “Let’s throw it in the river!”  
  
Louise grabbed the staff protectively. “No! It might be worth something! And I don’t want to poison the wildlife with evil deathly magic. We’ll just put it in the library. Maybe that way Gnarl will get off my back about needing to build up a collection of evil artifacts which I’ll never use, but which look shiny.”  
  
“It’s not shiny,” Cattleya pointed out.  
  
“Then I’ll have the minions polish it,” Louise said firmly. “Let’s just get this tower linked up to the main one, and I can get away from this stinking place.”

* * *

“Wonderful, your malevolence,” Gnarl said cheerfully, looking out over the map room and the glowing lines which represented the newly increased range from the lesser tower. They neatly covered Bruxelles, and looking closer Louise could see tiny witchfires burning to mark out locations of sites linked to the Tower Heart.  
  
She didn’t feel like talking, though. A black melancholy had descended upon her, along with exhaustion, and she just wanted to go to bed. “Very well,” she said softly. “Gnarl, organise the lesser tower being cleaned up and made… not-necromancy-ish. I’ll think about how to decorate it later, but for now, it needs to smell less like a charnel house and look less like… like it does. And… get the minions to loot it properly. You can choose who to reward in that way.”  
  
“Excellent, your wickedness,” Gnarl said. “I will prepare for some plans of how to outfit the lesser tower. As you know, they have much less room than a main one, and so it is necessary to specialise to a much greater degree than…”  
  
“Yes, yes,” Louise said. “I’m headed to bed.”  
  
Louise did not emerge from her room until late on the next day, and only then for food and to pick up more books. Some of it was because she was exhausted from the night, and how late she had got to bed. But that wasn’t the real reason.   
  
She didn’t like the side of Cattleya she had seen there. Not one bit. And Cattleya had always been her kind, sweet, caring sister who had always been there for her. It should have been so easy. Cattleya was just meant to go in, kill the utterly wicked necromancer who had been abducting peasants and… and well, if anyone had deserved to die, it had been that dreadful, dreadful man. Then she should have told Louise, and the blues could have stolen the boats and she could have bought the minions over to clean the tower out properly.  
  
Instead, she had taken it upon herself to pick off – and drain dry – some of the human guards in the place. And then when she had been spotted, she had decided to kill everything in the building and drink their blood. She should have told Louise. She should have found another way.  
  
… even if the guards had been in league with the utterly wicked necromancer and knew – or should have known – about the horrid things he was doing with the bodies and the stitching and the copper wires and… and... and everything. Louise hugged her knees tighter.  
  
She hated this kind of thing. She really did. It… it was fine when she was just coming up with plans and telling minions to do things and being cleverer than everyone else. It was fine when she was working straight towards her goals, when the worst thing she might be doing was setting a bunch of goblins with sharp weapons to fighting treasonous guards, or setting bandits on fire. They weren’t pretty things to do, but… but, well, people and goblins fought, and nobles set bandits on fire. They were facts of the world.  
  
Seeing her bloody-mouthed sister in a room full of torn-apart bodies smiling cheerfully wasn’t fine. Not one bit. She… she didn’t seem to see a problem with killing people. Not really. Not in the same way that Louise felt sick thinking about that room full of bodies which the necromancer had been sewing together.  
  
Admitedly, the minions didn’t see anything wrong with killing things either, but they were _minions_. And Cattleya was her _sister_. And it was all her fault that her sweet big sister had got involved in all of this, where she had actually _asked_ for Cattleya to kill someone.  
  
The overlady dried her eyes on her pillow. Well. She had brought her sister into this mess, so she would have to just be her keeper, stop her from going over the edge. She would keep her ‘Cattleya’, rather than a bloodsucking fiend. And she would get this thing over and done with quickly, so the two of them could go home and… and it would be all over.  
  
To that end, Louise went looking for Jessica.

* * *

She found her in the depths of the dungeons under the tower. Louise descended into darkness, following the minion who said that it knew where ‘the forgemistress’ was, down a long spiralling staircase. There was a dull red glow, growing stronger the deeper she went, and a clattering and clanking.  
  
“Uh… hello?” Louise called out. “Jessica? What are you doing down here?”  
  
A metallic face, featureless save for a single glassy eye, stared back at her. It was lit from beneath by the glow, and the dull light cast strange shadows across its blank, horrible expression. Louise recoiled in shock, eyes widening at the terrible dead gaze which locked on her.  
  
Jessica pushed back the welding mask. “Oh, hey Lou! You want something? Just working on a fridge; let me tell you this! It’s going to be the most stylishly evil fridge ever! It is going to fucking _menace_ with spikes!” She perked up some more. “Ooh! And maybe I can acid-etch it with images of the victims trapped within! You know, bacon weeping for lost loved ones, Hibernian eggs alone on a desolate battlefield, tiny sausages impaled on spikes…”  
  
“Um,” said Louise, who had completely lost her chain of thought. “It’s Louise, not ‘Lou’,” she said weakly. “And I’m not sure that such etchings are really…”  
  
“Yeah, they’re pretty tasteless,” Jessica said. “Ha ha. Tasteless. Which is funny, because they’re, you know, food.”  
  
It was one of the banes of her life, Louise thought, that she seemed cursed to be surrounded by people who thought they were funny. Surely, even the sort-of-slightly-evil deeds she’d been forced to do in the name of righteousness didn’t deserve this sort of penance, did they?  
  
“But anyway, with a fridge, I can keep some milk around,” Jessica continued. “Then I’ll just need to get a demonic cow, hook it up to a milker, and that’ll be that.” She glanced down at Louise. “You should drink more milk, you know. It’ll help you grow. Especially your…”  
  
“Demonic cows?” Louise interrupted, not liking where this conversation was going. “How do you get demonic cows?”  
  
“Well, you just look at my cousins,” Jessica said, glowering. “Bunch of demonic cows, the bunch of them.”  
  
Louise blushed bright red. “I’m… I… it… you drink… your cousins are actual cows and… um, I don’t think I can…”  
  
“Oh, urgh. Dark gods, no,” Jessica said, looking nauseated. “They’re just cows in the sense that, you know… in the same way that just because they’re bitches doesn’t mean they’re physically female dogs. You don’t use cow in that way?”  
  
Louise could proudly say that she did not. Except when talking about Kirche von Zerbst. “Fine, I get your point,” she muttered. “The ways of the Abyss are strange and… sometimes I misunderstand what you’re saying, all right! So these demonic cows are… what?”  
  
“Demon cows. You know, so they have hooves, horns, tails… the works.”  
  
“Normal cows have them too,” Louise said. Well, if there was one advantage, she thought ruefully to herself, it was trying to understand the very peculiar way the half-incubus thought was taking all her concentration. She didn’t have time to think about Cattleya when she was trying to comprehend the alien concepts which seemed to come naturally to the daughter of one of the hell-princes.  
  
“Really?” Jessica asked, frowning. “Are you sure?”  
  
“Yes. Quite sure.”  
  
“Like… are you sure those weren’t secretly demonic cows? A secret force of malevolent corruption lying to the fools of the surface world so they welcomed them into their farms before… wham! Suddenly the cows are the ones in charge!”  
  
“Yes, I am.”  
  
“Huh. So… man. It turns out demonic cows and normal cows are the same thing. Huh. I could… I did not see that coming.” Jessica frowned. “I gotta say, my human cousins are a bit more impressive if they have to deal with the flaming breath and the way they eat the flesh of men. I thought they just had wussy cows without horns and stuff.”  
  
Louise worked her mouth. “No, normal cows don’t eat meat,” she managed. “Or breathe fire. That’s… that’s a demonic thing. But they do have horns and hooves and tails.”  
  
Jessica threw her hands up. “Argh! You have to make your mind up, nature! Why would you give something horns and hooves if it wasn’t a demon! It makes no sense!”  
  
Louise massaged her brow. “How is everything going getting the forge working?” she asked, trying to return the conversation to more sane territory.  
  
“Oh, good, good! I mean, it’s actually a fair bit better than I would have hoped. There’s quite a bit of mostly intact gear down here, and Gnarl says he knows a place we can raid to get our hands on a new smelter. Until I have one of those, I’ve got a forge set up, so I can get started on basic stuff. Nothing too fancy.” She paused. “I am going to need raw materials for all of this, though, so if you find ore or raw metal, have the minions loot it. Or any of the four alchemical transmutatives; you know, albedo, rubedo and all that. They’re really useful. You always need more rubedo. Or potatoes.”  
  
Louise blinked. “What are potatoes?”  
  
“… are they another thing you don’t have on the surface? Aww, man.” Jessica put down the things she had been playing with, and slumped down. “Oh well. Gotta make the best of things. And no, it’s not to help making stuff. I just like potatoes. What else do you make chips from?”  
  
The overlady didn’t see why you would want to make chips; things getting chipped was bad. “Anyway,” she said, “I was going to be heading to Bruxelles to look for where the portal into the palace was mentioned, because I want to see its location and what it is exactly. And you do know the area, and it might be a chance for you to pick up anything you left behind.”  
  
“Oh!” Jessica said. “If we’re going to Bruxelles, can we please please please delay until the Voidsday after next? It’s just my cousin is going to be in town and that way I can see them at the same time as doing your thing.”  
  
“I thought you hated all your cousins,” Louise said, interested despite herself.  
  
Jessica rolled her eyes. “Human side,” she said. “And technically I don’t hate all my demonic side cousins because they’re stupid cows who are mean and stole my dolls when I was little. Just the vast majority of them. But still, please?”  
  
Louise thought quickly. If she did have a legitimate excuse for why she was taking Jessica to Bruxelles, then on the outside chance something happened she might have a better chance for escaping eternal torment. And it’s not like a wait of a few days meant much. “Fine,” she said, shrugging. “I suppose…”  
  
“Oh, just wait a minute!” Jessica flitted off, returning with a handful of papers. “I really wanted to start talking about the uniform to give to your legion of doom! I’m thinking plate! We want them to be intimidating! But first we’re going to need fittings And proofs of concept! And trials! And experimentation to see what the optimal design to get the best balance of protectiveness and style!”  
  
The overlady noticed the lack of mention of ‘cost’ in those considerations. And of all the things she wanted to do today, watching minions pose around in their… their underthings while Jessica measured them up was pretty dratted far down the list. Did minions even wear underthings? She didn’t want to find out.  
  
“You can start putting some initial thought into things,” she told the other girl firmly. “Right now, trying to get the minion hive working is a higher priority for me. I’m sure I’m fairly close to a breakthrough, though.”

* * *

  
_blort_  
  
“… I feel sick.


	30. In Another Castle 6-3

_“Dearest diary. Bored. Bored bored bored bored bored. Bored bored... hmm. You have to write ‘bored’ eight times before it stops looking like a word. These are the depths I am reduced to, to find my own entertainment. The maids visited today, and dearest diary, you would not believe me if I were to tell you what Mary said she did with the stable boys. I rather doubt some of the details myself; perhaps they are just telling tall tales to a poor isolated princess. I don’t even see how one could get one’s hands on that much butter, although she assures me it would not work without it. But either way, that sounds like rather more fun than having one’s hag of a mother have one copy out verses on the duties of an obedient daughter._ ”  
  
– Princess Henrietta de Tristain

* * *

It was Voidsday, and a great and terrible evil had descended on Bruxelles. Cloaked in lies, it had walked among the masses in the streets, and now lurked in the most degenerate and wretched place in the city.  
  
Louise was somewhat regretting wearing her long black hooded cloak to the Charming Fairies Inn.  
  
“For the last time,” she said, voice rising in pitch, “I am not your contact! The words ‘hide your sword in a fish lest the riverman eat the moon’ do not mean anything to me! In fact, it doesn’t make sense at all! Can’t a girl have a drink in peace without a group ofsuspicious unwashed thugs harassing her?”  
  
The aforementioned burly gentlemen and women wearing armour which failed to protect much of their chest stared at her. “I bathed recently,” one of the women said, sounding hurt.  
  
“Your companion is splattered with dried blood,” Louise said flatly.  
  
“Oh, no, no,” said the bulky man with a large hammer on his back, “ah ha, no, I could see how you might think it, but actually, that’s beetroot. I was having a sandwich and… well, I dropped it down my front and…”  
  
“No, I think that’s blood on your face,” the cleaner woman said.  
  
“Oh, that. Well, excuse me for not spending every hour primping over my appearance, my lady,” the man said, dripping with sarcasm, “but why would you wait here dressed like our contact if you were not, in fact, our contact!”  
  
Louise looked around. She had to admire Scarron’s business sense, in a sort of twisted way. He knew what his clientele wanted and gave it to them. Why else would the room be shaped like a many-pointed star so all the tables around the edge were in shadowed alcoves? She could vaguely see other hooded and cloaked figures lurking in them. “I’m not your contact,” she said, grinning – or at least doing something which involved baring her teeth. “But if you’ll go away and leave me alone, I’ll tell you a rumour I heard.”  
  
“Go on,” the other woman in the group of thugs, who had a pierced nose. Louise was fairly sure meant she was a homicidal maniac.  
  
“From what I heard,” the overlady of dark evilness said, thinking quickly, “there is a sinister dark force behind the Albionese rebellion. They… uh, say the leader of it is not actually Cromwell, but that… um, a dark figure leaves his quarters at night, smelling of the Abyss. And I have heard mention of that name, whispered by… trees. They say the force he consorts with is called… Shafeela.”  
  
There was a dramatic silence. Or possibly just a silence.  
  
“And what?” the woman with the nose piercing said.  
  
“Well, they’re both really evil,” Louise said.  
  
“Oh, no doubt,” the man who smelt faintly of blood and beetroot said. “But what’s the reward?”  
  
Louise stared, trying very hard to stay calm. “I have heard the Mask of Shafeela makes you invisible and also able to… see things through walls,” she said, inventing things on the spot. “And take on other appearances. And it means when you hit something they… uh, catch on fire. Magic fire. You just need to cut off her head to get… uh, the benefits; if she’s still alive, it won’t work for anyone else.”  
  
There was whispering between the armed thugs. “Noble sage!” one of the women with a pierced nose said, “we shall seek out and destroy this ‘Shafeela’! For the good of the land, and for Tristain!”  
  
“Wonderful,” Louise said, smiling to herself. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to talk about… uh, mystical signs which have been seen in the south with this young lady.”  
  
The mercenaries clattered off, and Jessica sat down at the table, a glass of wine in hand. “Sorry about the delay,” she said casually, “but you know how family is. And then I didn’t want to interrupt you.”  
  
“I could have done with being interrupted,” Louise said drily. “How was your cousin?”  
  
“Oh, he’s doing fine,” Jessica said happily. “He’s walking out with a girl from the next village over, and the wedding is planned for the spring.” She patted down her pockets. “Oh yeah, and Dad gave me the spring brochure to give to you in advance, ‘cause of how you’re such a good client and all.”  
  
Louise nodded. Yes, her money would probably go rather quickly on outfitting a room for Henrietta and bringing the secondary tower back up to full operations, and this was just another temptation. “Well,” she said, dropping her voice. “Are you about ready to go?”  
  
“Just about,” Jessica said. “I’ll just go get changed, get into something better suited for walking around the docks in, pick up a gun, and we can go. The directions said the place was near where the palace stands in the Overworld, right?”  
  
Louise nodded.  
  
“Okay, that’s good enough. I used to play down there a bit when I was a little girl, before it stopped being safe. The whole area’s a slum now; the money never came back after the Karinian Crash, and all the high class demons moved out. Uh. You did bring your minions, right?”  
  
“I have thirty ready and waiting to…” Louise felt her honesty compelled her to admit, “… uh, loot and kill.”  
  
“Oh, good. They’ll fit right in, then.”

* * *

Where in the above world the docks of Bruxelles were a bustling riverport, in the Abyss they were a vast and squalid remnant of industrial splendour. Towering iron cranes stood slowly rusting in the snow, alight with blue fire that radiated cold. The apartment buildings were crumbling and degenerate, suspicious eyes peering out of the windows down at the strangers who walked through the streets, working their way towards the monolith of black basalt which stood where the palace did in the real world.  
  
Despite all this, however, there were traces of renovations, done in a strange style quite unlike the hellish mockery of Tristainian works which dominated. Paper lanterns hung from eaves, decorated in different colours which seemed to be some complicated system of path marking through the narrowed streets. In certain areas, there were market stalls covered in various hellish delicacies; Louise had her work cut out keeping the minions from looting them. Not because she cared about demon storeholders, of course; no, she was just saving her forces for their destination.  
  
Of course, this was a fairly rough area, and it was hard going at times. The latest group of four imps, hefting blades which looked more like machetes than they did swords, grinned maliciously. They were then overrun by thirty minions, who beat the living crap out of them, and then – after the beatings had escalated sufficiently – the dead crap, too.  
  
“Na na nan a na!” sung a brown, holding a pair of severed horns to its head. “Look! I is a red! I throw fire at you!”  
  
“You is not a red,” said a red-skinned minion, grinning as it balanced a fireball on its finger. “Look! You is not fireproof!”  
  
Louise sighed as the brown ran around, screaming, before collapsing in a blackened pile. “Maggat,” she said as a blue revived the charred minion. “Discipline them both for insubordinate actions.”  
  
“She means give them a punish-y hitting,” Maxy whispered to him.  
  
“I know that!” Maggat snapped back, “The overlady is using the word ‘in-sub-ore-dine-eight’ a lot so I is knowing what it is meaning!” To that end, he picked up the two of them by their necks and slammed their foreheads together. He then squinted forensically, and did it four more times. “Right, you sad lot!” he ordered. “The overlady no is liking how more minions is getting dead from after fight than fighties!”  
  
“The overlady is rather wishing she could go more than a few steps without something jumping out on her and dying,” Louise said to Jessica drily. “What, is everything around here stupid? Why would four imps try to ambush this lot? And why did they try to line up like that?”  
  
“Oh, they look like immigrants from the Mystic East,” Jessica said, carelessly. She was wearing a long black buff jacket, open at the front and made out of some kind of leather – Louise didn’t want to ask what kind of creature had contributed its skin – and for some reason was wearing reading glasses made of cursed mirrors which banned the rays of honest sunlight from their presence and reflected only a dark-tinged world lit by strange stars. And whatever she was wearing underneath the coat was alluringly horrific in its black shininess, more like the carapace of some strange insect than anything a decent person might wear. She had a short multi-barrelled musket, elaborately decorated with demonic ingenuity, slung over one shoulder. “It’s a cultural thing for them, and you can’t just go around insulting their culture. Even if it’s pretty fucking stupid.”  
  
“’Cause impies are stupider than minions,” Igni called out cheerfully, from where he was trying to strap horns to his horns. “They no is knowing that the bestest fight is one where you has three or more buddies for every one they have. That way the killing is done quick-quick, and we can all go onto the funnest bit, which is the looting.”  
  
“And the hats!” Fettid added, recovering one of the vicious blades she carried from the split-open skull of a demon, wiping it on the dress she wore. Louise had never liked the dress when it was hers, and the state it was in – she felt – was a suitable punishment for all the times she had been made to wear it. “Oooh! An eyepatch! If I cut a hole in it, I can wear it and see out of it!”  
  
“Yeah,” Jessica said, elongating the word, “a lot of demons aren’t that bright. Like, at all. Even when they’re lords and stuff, they’re still pretty dumb.” The dark-haired girl fiddled with the stock of her musket. “Like, I heard rumours that… well, the King of the Abyss, my grandfather on my dad’s side, might have started off as like an elf or something. Or at least he wasn’t pure demon, and that’s how he managed to take over. Which, for your information, makes the way people discriminate against me just because I have Hero blood doubly hypocritical, thank you very much!”  
  
Louise hadn’t said anything, but nodded along anyway.  
  
“And, well, look at my cousins. Like, Tzserah and Ja’ghneit are stupid self-indulgent bitches, while Isah’belya, say, is a too-clever-by-half arrogant smug stealing-your-slice-of-birthday-cake cow, and she’s clearly got more of her human side in her than them, if you just look at her – she even has human skin! And thus she can stop thinking about sex for more than five minutes and instead spends her time thinking about how to draw on your face when you’re having a sleepover! Which was totally unprovoked! Drawing a moustache on my face was totally beyond the pale!”  
  
Louise endeavoured to silently convey an impression that while she was deeply sympathetic, and that this was all very interesting, the streets of the Abyss were perhaps not the place to be having this discussion.  
  
“All I did was put a frog in her sleeping bag! She didn’t even know it was me! She just went after me because she’s mean!”  
  
The overlady tried to hide her sudden revulsion. As far as she was concerned, anyone who put anything as vile as a _frog_ in a bag related to sleeping deserved what was coming to them. She hated frogs.  
  
“Oh, overlady! Forgemistress!” Maggat shuffled his feet. “When you was talkin’, four and then four more impies attacked. They is all dead now.”  
  
“Honestly, trying to walk through this area is like a warzone,” Louise said, grimacing. “Come on. Do you think we’re nearing the Palace, Jessica?  
  
“Well, we’re still short of Malebogey Square at the moment,” Jessica said confidently. “That means we still need to keep on going around in a loop, so we don’t run into the Malebogey and then take another detour so we keep out of the territory controlled by the Ichors, and then… well, yeah, quite a bit to go.”  
  
“This is taking forever,” Louise grumbled. “The palace is visible from the Charming Fairies, for goodness sake! It’s just on the other side of the river!”  
  
Jessica sucked in a breath. “Oh man, the river,” she said.  
  
“I’m not a man,” Louise said.  
  
“Oh man, the river,” the dark-haired girl said, ignoring the interruption. “Let me tell you about the fucking river.”  
  
“Go on.”  
  
“You don’t want to know about the fucking river.”

* * *

“So.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Louise removed her hands from her flaming cheeks, still blushing scarlet. “I really didn’t want to know about the fu… the flipping river. I really, really didn’t want to see it. And crossing the… the flipping river was just horrid! That bridge was a trap!”  
  
“Well, duh. Guess what happens when people try to repair it if they don’t pay to cross. Yuck.” Jessica shot an amused side-glance at Louise. “Although it did quieten down somewhat when you had the minions push that tower over into it, and then set everything on fire. Dad’s probably going to get some complaints from the domain it’s a citizen of, you know. The Demente has had a thing for the Mortine for ages, and… neither of them are going to be happy. And I didn’t even know water could burn like that.” She paused. “Well, mostly water.”  
  
“It brought it on itself!” Louise exploded. “Rivers shouldn’t act like that! At all! Especially not in public!”  
  
“Well, we’re over it now, and…” Jessica looked behind her, at the bare riverbed behind the impromptu dam, and the demons swarming over the newly exposed ground looking for the loot the minions had missed. “We probably should find another way back, or otherwise wait a while.”  
  
The two girls and the minion horde looked up at the walls of the dark Abyssal reflection of the palace. The white marble of the above world was replaced by cyclopean basalt, and there were what looked like demon corpses ensconced in some kind of biological webbing hanging from the crenulations.  
  
“Oh boy,” Maxy said sadly. “Hornie spideys. Hornie spidies are like the worstest. They no is dropping any real good loot. An’ I already has better weapons than what you get when you cut off one of their legsies and hit stuff with it.”  
  
“Say stuff for you, but not me!” Igni said cheerfully. “They is real handy when cut up! The chunkies of their bodies are useful for stuff. Like the gluey stuff.”  
  
“Well,” Jessica said, looking around, “anyway, before this area went downhill, I used to play in the gardens here. So we should just be able to get in over the wall down there, by crawling through one of the small drainage vents. The gate’s always locked anyway.”  
  
There was, however, a small problem. Or rather, a problem caused by a lack of smallness.  
  
“Uh. I think I’ve grown quite a bit,” Jessica said, looking down at the outlet. “How in blazes did I ever fit in through there? I don’t think even you’ll fit.”  
  
Louise pouted.  
  
“Actually, that reminds me,” Jessica added. “You’re trying to avoid raising your arms too much. Do you need your breastplate letting out?”  
  
“It is getting a bit tight,” the overlady admitted. “That’s part of the reason I’m not wearing the full set. It was rubbing at the Cabal Awards, too.” She perked up. “Yes! Growth! And it’s tight in the chest, which is the best news!”  
  
“Well, it’s been almost a year. Remind me to look at it when you get back; you’re not much of an overlady if you’re bleeding from a too-tight outfit.” Jessica paused. “Well, no, actually, I’m just lying there,” she admitted. “Lots of dark ladies suffer in the name of looking thinner and more graceful than they actually are. But, you know; a) you’re not going for that look, and b) you’ll make me suffer if you’re bleeding from being chafed raw.”  
  
“I wouldn’t make you suffer,” Louise protested.  
  
Jessica gave her a look.  
  
“Much,” Louise admitted. “Fine. Well, hmm.”  
  
“We could make boomy and blow vent open with blackpowder!” Igni suggested. “If we had blackpowder! I not see why we not allowed it. It so not fair.”  
  
Louise felt it was probably better if she did the thinking, being one of only two people qualified to do it in their little group. She looked up. “We don’t have enough rope with us to have the minions run inside and throw it down.” She massaged her temples. Yes. That should work. “I require an elite team of minions to enter the hell-palace and…” she paused, dramatically, “open the gate from the inside.”  
  
“The wheel controlling it is right by the gate,” Jessica said, helpfully.  
  
“Right you is, overlady!” Maggat said, saluting sloppily. “We just go in and open gate and kill the stuff what is probably hornie spideys along the way. Remember you suckers, if spidey get you in web, you is not to complain when reds set you on fire to burn off the webbies! And greens, remember, you no is hurt by poison, so you not complain when I has you set off nasty traps!”  
  
“Spidey poison taste nicey-nice,” Fettid said cheerfully, darting down the tunnel with a whoop.  
  
Louise sighed, a mix of frustration and amusement in the noise. “Sometimes I wonder what’s going on in their heads,” she said, “and usually the answer I come up with is ‘nothing at all’. But they can be so wretchedly ingenious for idiots.”  
  
“You know,” Jessica said, “you say that, but… well, Gnarl.”  
  
“That is true,” Louise admitted.  
  
“You know, I looked him up in the records, and I’m honestly not sure if it’s an inherited title or not, because there’s references to ‘the Gnarl’ and ‘a gnarled goblin’ and ‘the twisted advisor of Insert Overlord Name Here’ as far back as I could find,” the dark-haired girl said. “At least one and a half thousand years, and there’s probably some older ones, but I can’t read Old Infernal. Also, I stopped when a book tried to eat my hand.”  
  
Louise worked her mouth, trying to find the words. “… huh,” she managed. “So he’s either that old, or it’s an inherited title, or possibly that glowing crystal he has supercharges his minionly intellect and any minion who kills him loots it and becomes the new Gnarl.”  
  
“Oh, I didn’t think of that last one,” Jessica said cheerfully. “They are very fond of looting, aren’t they?”  
  
There was a cough from the Gauntlet. “ _Your Evilness,_ ” Gnarl said, “ _I have received word from the advance party that they are one quarter of the way to the gates._ ”  
  
“You didn’t hear that?” Louise blurted out.  
  
“ _Hear what, your darkness?_ ”  
  
Louise was almost certain that he had heard everything, but if he wasn’t going to admit it, then neither would she. “Nothing. That is g… bad news, Gnarl. Have they encountered any effective resistance?”  
  
“ _No, your overladyness,_ ” her advisor said. “ _Only a few demonic spiders, some toxin-mindbroken thralls, some mercenaries, some bandits who were trying to sneak into the place when the minions stumbled across them, and some goblins tied up in webs._ ”  
  
“… uh. Well, they have been busy,” Louise said.  
  
“ _Oh, say no more. How are you doing against the endless waves of enemies which are attacking you while you wait for the minions to open the gate?_ ” he asked.  
  
The overlady looked around. She couldn’t see any endless waves of attackers. “Jessica,” she asked, “are there any… like, invisible demons who might be attacking us when we aren’t noticing them?”  
  
“Nope.” Jessica frowned. “Well, I mean, there are plenty of species of invisible demons, like the ones who spread diseases in the world above, but we’d know if they were attacking us. Also, you know, I can see them. Or I could see them if they were here. Which they’re not. So I can see them and because I can’t see them I know they’re not here.”  
  
Years as Cattleya’s sister had prepared Louise for decoding such convoluted chains of conversational logic, and she nodded agreeably. “No, Gnarl, we are not being attacked by demons. Not even invisible ones, Jessica says,” she said.  
  
“ _How peculiar._ ” Louise could feel the elderly minion frowning. “ _Endless waves of attackers while you wait for minions to open a gate are a favoured tactic of the forces of the Abyss. I do hope they’re not sick._ ”  
  
“It really is a wicked tactic,” Jessica contributed. “Pin them up against a wall and wipe them out. It’s just obvious.”  
  
Louise could not help but agree there. It made perfect sense to her. “Well, they’re not here,” she said. “Gnarl; have you found anything about what might be waiting for us inside the palace?”  
  
“ _Very little, your evilness. Sadly, we cannot trust Scarron enough to ask him about this sort of thing, because we cannot risk compromising the integrity of your most dastardly plan – not least because controlling the palace in the Abyss is a condemnable goal in its own right._ ” He paused. “ _However, from long experience I can confidently predict that some kind of giant monster, skilled swordman or possibly a demon lord will attack you as soon as you enter the large courtyard – or at the very least the gardens beyond it. Or possibly they might attack you when you try to leave. No, probably they’ll attack you when you enter. It is their territory, after all._ ”  
  
“Wonderful. Just wonderful Do you know who controls the palace at the moment?” Louise asked Jessica. “If we’re going to be attacked…”  
  
Jessica sucked in a breath. “No, sorry,” she said. “A few years ago it was Klavensih the Vile, but I think he died of Heroes, and then I think the favourite was going to be Hearnnargh Iceheart, but she ran into Blitzhert von Zerbst and his eldest son and… well, the journals said that all he said about her fate was ‘she just melted at the sight of me and my massive wand! Rrrarrrgh!’. But she was never seen again, regardless of what he did to her.”  
  
“Kirche has a brother? She never mentioned that,” Louise said, mildly surprised. “I thought she was the heir – the Germanians are very backwards about inheritance in that way. Oh well, that’s not important.”  
  
She sucked in a breath through her teeth, looking Jessica up and down – seriously, what was that thing she was wearing under the buff jacket? Despite the fact it covered everything up, it was positively indecent! And clearly Jessica was somewhat agitated despite her calm appearance, because Louise was feeling somewhat warm and fizzy at the sight of it. Dratted half-incubus and her aura making her feel things like that. “Jessica,” she said, “maybe you should wait outside. If we’re going to be attacked by something, then…”  
  
Jessica squared her jaw mulishly. “I’m in this too!” she said firmly. “We got all the way through the streets together, didn’t we?”  
  
“Yes, but those were pathetic,” Louise said. “I don’t… um, want you to be in danger and…”  
  
“Did Dad put you up to this?” Jessica said, hands on hips. “Perhaps by threatening ceaseless and unending agony?”  
  
“… yes.”  
  
“Urgh! He always does this! Do you know how many boyfriends get scared off by that routine? It’s not like he means… okay, he does mean it; every last word. But still! Well, you can tell him and his overprotectiveness that if you’d had me waiting outside, then I could have been attacked by anything without you to protect me!” she said, smugly.  
  
Drat. That was a good point.  
  
… no, wait, it wasn’t. It was a point which meant that she was doomed either way. Louise ground her teeth. This was not how she had seen ‘okay, Jessica knows the area, so she can show me where to find the palace and maybe how to get in’ going. There had been fewer demons trying to attack them on the way there, fewer detours, and absolutely no f… flipping rivers.  
  
Oh Founder, she was so doomed. Doomed doomity doomed doomed. Time to make the best of a bad situation. Or the worst of a good one, if she was using Gnarl’s terminology, which she wasn’t. And when she got back, she would leave Jessica so busy that she wouldn’t have time to think of going anywhere else. “In that case,” she said, trying to sound like a confident young woman in control of her own destiny and not facing an eternity of torment if anything went a little itty bitty wrong, “as you… uh, have a musket, it’s your role to keep nice and sa… watchful at the back, with lots of minions around you because… they’re short and won’t get in the way of your shots.”  
  
“All right,” Jessica said, nodding. “And if it really does get too bad, I guess I can just fly away.”  
  
“You can fly,” Louise said flatly. “That would have been useful for getting in, you know.”  
  
Jessica winced. “Only when I get really scared or emotional or… you know, stuff like that,” she said, in a small voice, “and I don’t like doing it. It’s bad for my gender identity. Proper wings, not the stubby ones which make demon magic easy… well, they’re a long way past the horns and hooves and goatee stage, if you get my drift.”  
  
“I don’t… but I don’t think I want to know,” said Louise, trying her best not to think about what the other girl had said.  
  
“ _The minions have reached the gate and are opening it,_ ” Gnarl informed them.  
  
With a quick phrase, Louise summoned a ball of fire and held it in her free hand. “Let’s see how this goes,” she said bluntly, because she was trying very hard not to scream from the nerves.  
  
The gates were wide open before them, and cautiously the two women advanced, Louise with fireball at the ready, Jessica with her gun in hand. Carefully, trying not to make any noise, they made their way through the tunnel through the thick walls.  
  
Though it had not been visible from the outside, the palace was a ruined mess. Faintly glowing green webs littered the place. The buildings were eroded and worn, some strange acid eating away at their structure. The gardens were long dead. So were most of the corpses in the webs.  
  
“Well,” Jessica said slowly, “that’s not a bad sign.”  
  
“Not a bad sign?” Louise asked, half-turning to stare at her. “What about this is not b… oh. Oh. Oh… sugar.”  
  
Naturally, that was when the gates clanked closed behind them, a jet of luminous thread pulling them shut and sealing it off. With a sinking feeling of horror, Louise’s eyes widened when she caught sight of the giant toxic green spider-thing, eight human arms extruding from its fleshy body, its countless arachnid eyes burning violet in a particularly tasteless way. That wasn’t how human-spider demonic hybrids were meant to look! Not one bit!  
  
Oh, and it had brought its children with it.  
  
“Drat,” Louise breathed.  
  
“Fuck,” added Jessica.  
  
“ _Oh,_ that’s _where the endless waves of demonic spiders had gotten to!_ ” Gnarl said cheerfully.

* * *

A great horn sounded up as Louise called upon the magic of her gauntlet to get the attention of her minions. The spiders were coming up quickly, and – urgh, what kind of horrible thing had eight human arms – she didn’t want to be overrun.  
  
“Browns! Form a defensive line!” she ordered. “Reds and blues, stay behind them! I want any spider which comes too close to get burnt! Make sure you protect the blues when they recover bodies! Greens! Hide among the reds, and counter-attack when the spiders hit the browns! Hit and retreat!” Beside her, a blackpowder weapon boomed, and Jessica grinned as a spider burst.  
  
Louise, for her part, set fire to the largest group of spiders she could see. They screamed and wailed in inhumanly high voices, but she had no room for satisfaction. There were just so many of them. And any they killed just resulted in more of them scuttling out of the walls of the ruined castle.  
  
“This are lame,” she heard Scyl complain over the noise of the battle, dragging a fallen brown back from the front line. “Minions no is meant to be smaller side in fight.”  
  
Yes, Louise had to agree. It was very lame.  
  
“Reloading!” Jessica called out, as another wave of spiders barrelled into the minions, tearing several apart before Louise filled the gap with fire.  
  
They were losing and she was doomed and there was no time to think about that. She glared up at the demon-spider with hate-filled eyes. Hundreds of years of de la Vallière blood welled up inside her, demanding to stay inside her body. She was inclined to acquiesce to the demands of her bloodline.  
  
Fighting defensively wasn’t working, and the demon-matriarch of the spiders was hanging back. Its mouth was totally and utterly inhuman, but if it had possessed a mouth which didn’t look like the sort of thing which gave even grown adults nightmares, it would probably have been grinning. Which meant that it felt it could win by swarming her under.  
  
So the sensible solution was to murder it. And then possibly desecrate its corpse to inspire fear into its younglings, although Louise was not sure if she was going to listen to that particular demand of her bloodline. The wisdom of hundreds of years of wicked, sinful, malevolent, and generally pretty darn terrible ancestors surged through her mind, but it was fundamentally her will which chose the next course of action.  
  
She shot the demon-spider in the face with lightning.  
  
“Charge!” she yelled. “I want that thing’s head!”  
  
This order was carried out enthusiastically, because while the minions were familiar with the concept of a defensive action, they much preferred to be gratuitously offensive. A wedge of surging goblinoids punched through the horde of lesser spiders, some of the newer minions already waving around torn-off spider arms as improvised bludgeons, and Louise grabbed Jessica by the arm and yanked her in their path. For good measure, she also set fire to any particularly dense groups she could see. Baring of course the minions, who were usually the densest group in any given space even if it contained clusters of basalt.  
  
A spider the size of her torso leapt at her; Louise battered it with her staff and a minion pounced. She spun, chanting, and a wave of pink flame ignited more of the monsters, the ones around them screeching in the heat and the choking white smoke. Another crack of Jessica’s musket and a screech from the spider-queen showed that the half-incubus had got what she was trying to do.  
  
And then things went a little bit utterly horrifically terribly wrong.  
  
The bright green spider matriarch took a step back, and then a flying leap. And landed on top of the minion wedge, with a rather squishy noise. With one hand it grabbed for Louise; the overlady scrambled back, falling backwards and letting loose a panicked concussive blast which did little more than momentarily stun it. It could still flail around, grabbing and crushing anything in range.  
  
“Get back!” Louise screamed at Jessica, fear gripping her heart.  
  
A ballistic Fettid hit the mother of the demonic brood in the face, and as the minion seldom went anywhere without her wickedly long knives, by the time the spider managed to crush the green in one hand it was down three eyes and had a machete stuck through one of its chelicerae.  
  
It screamed in inhuman agony, and Louise was more than happy to add to that by introducing its nearest hand to lightning, which sent it spasming to the ground. The smell was indescribable, but was handily approximated by some mix of burning pork and rotting seafood.  
  
And then it grabbed for Jessica. The girl screamed as its hand closed around her, vast dark wings fighting the grasp and losing. Despite that tenebral aid and the aura of uttermost masculinity which enveloped the captive, Jessica was losing.  
  
Louise levelled her staff at the demon and screamed one single unpronounceable word. She could not say where it came from, nor how she knew what it would do. It almost seemed to flow into her mind from outside, pouring into her from her sinister hand.  
  
And then the demonic spider exploded. Messily. And for good measure, its death made all its offspring detonate too.  
  
There was silence, apart from the drip of ichor off the buildings, and the screaming of the still-on-fire river outside.  
  
“Yes!” Louise shouted, lowering her staff. “I got my arm in front of my face this time! And I knew murdering it was the best plan! And you’re not dead! And I’m not going to suffer forever!” She paused. “And I’m covered in spider! Urgh! Why does this manner of thing keep happening?”  
  
Jessica picked herself out of the puddle of goo, spitting. She scraped her fingers through her newly-grown neat goatee, shaking them off. “You’re not covered in spider,” she said, weakly, shedding her once-black buff jacket. “I am. It’s in my mouth and... and everything’s ruined and... and I think I’m going to throw up now.”  
  
“Pretty,” a nearby minion said to Louise cheerfully, over the noise of Jessica’s retching. “You is bestest overlady. We see so many more boomies with you around than other boss-ladies. Or boss-men.”  
  
Spider demon didn’t smell as bad as black minion gloop Louise thought, in a slightly detached manner. Well, she should count her blessings wherever she could or she would go quite, quite mad. And she was still alive and wasn’t even facing an eternity of torment and hadn’t unleashed an unspeakable evil on the world who would be responsible for aforementioned torment. Gosh. Wasn’t she lucky? Being covered in spider was nothing compared to that.  
  
She went to whimper into her fist, but stopped herself because her hands were covered in spider… in spider. She’d need to find somewhere to wipe them. When, you know, she was in a place which wasn’t covered in arachnodemon.  
  
“I have spider down my front,” Jessica complained. “You’d think a catsuit would manage to stop that. But _no._ ”  
  
“Your suit is made of cats? Well, don’t let Cattleya find out,” Louise advised her, deliberately forcing herself to focus on the spider-covered world in front of her.  
  
Jessica stared at her, and shrugged. “I hated that bitch in life, and it turns out, it is possible to hate her even more.” She paused, and patted her chest. “Oh, oh, yeah. I think I know why it got down my front. Because I went all demony... yeah, that meant it got all loose in the chest. I’ve probably ruined the neck and shoulders from them bulking out, and at the same time I went all flat and... oh dark malevolent deities! It’s oozing! Ick, ick, it’s running down my front and... it’s slimy!”  
  
“… you knew that thing?” Louise asked, raising an eyebrow.  
  
“Oh yes, couldn’t you tell? That was Iacki. Local ganglord. Once tried to hassle Dad, and found why that wasn’t a good idea. I didn’t know she’d taken over this place and had pretentions of being a posh lady.”  
  
“No. No, I could not tell she was a ‘posh’ lady, whatever that means.”  
  
“Well, she was female,” Jessica said with a shrug. “I’m not sure you could really call her a lady. I mean she would have laid her young in our chests and they would have torn their way out eating us in the process. I don’t call that ladylike behaviour.” She squared her shoulders, and put on a long-suffering expression. “Let’s just get this day over and done with, so we can go back and have baths,” she said miserably. “I need to invent some kind of anti-ichor ward. The ‘blood splattered’ look might look wicked in the journals, but I think I’ve just gone off it.”  
  
“That go pretty well, I thinks,” the newly resurrected Fettid said. “And look! Overlady! For you!” she added, offering a handful of eyeballs to Louise.  
  
The girl pursed her lips. “You… you can keep them,” she said.  
  
The minion nodded. “Yes, overlady! You bestest best overlady!”  
  
“Thank you very…”  
  
“I make earrings from them!”

* * *

Louise decided it was best to move very swiftly on from discussions of spiderly eyeball-earrings and other things of that ilk. She wanted a bath and to get out of her ichor-drenched robe. She would also rather not spend too long around the sodden Jessica, who was suffering considerably and apparently saw no reason not to spread the misery around.  
  
Most of the upper floors of the Abyssal palace were a degenerate den of spider webs and prey, ruined beyond accessibility. Fortunately, her destination lay in the lower levels, and she still had some surviving reds to burn out the cobwebs. She also found a cleanish bit of wall to wipe her hands and the worst of the gloop off her robes, though Jessica was really unsaveable.  
  
It really was very fortunate that the red-skinned goblinoids could not set themselves on fire, she thought, watching them stick their hands in molten burning web.  
  
She found her destination down in a side room, following the directions from Gnarl. The place was lousy with webs, but the door was small enough that it seemed that only the smaller creatures could get through, and far enough from the exits that none of them had wanted to lair here. Instead, the bloody light of the Abyssal sky filtered down through small shafts, to reveal a dusty room which was fitted out in an archaic style.  
  
It still managed to feel more homey to Louise than the rest of this wretched place.  
  
“Apparently,” she said, clearing her throat, “there are two magic mirrors in this place, which are the connection to the palace. Apparently a very wicked and repugnant ancestor or… great uncle or something of the Queen used to consort with the Abyss…”  
  
“Ah, yes,” Jessica said knowingly, looking around hopefully for a source of clean water and finding none. “‘Consorting’. A lot of men do that. Women too.”  
  
“… as part of a wicked plan to reach into the darkness outside reality and call forth horrific reality-eating horrors,” Louise continued, refusing to be dissuaded.  
  
“Well, that is what happens if you don’t use protection.”  
  
“I think hoping that you’re protected from the horrors you’re summoning is… a worse idea than not summoning them at all,” the overlady said firmly. “I mean, a better idea than not… I mean it’s stupid to do.” She sighed, and looked around the room. “You know, this room actually looks like it used to be really quite pretty. Those paintings on the wall look actually rather nice, from what I can see, and the wood panelling looks expensive. I mean, the fireplace is made of… is that black marble? Well, it looks sort of… tastefully sinister, in a quiet understated way.”  
  
“And there’s a bed over there; you can see the bones under the webs,” Jessica observed. “Next to those things covered in dust sheets.”  
  
“Ah! Those might be the mirrors,” Louise said enthusiastically. “Now… yes. Apparently there’s some kind of magical trap about them, so… we’ll just step outside and I need a volunteer to… uh, loot the sheets and only the sheets.”  
  
Several minions took a step forward. Maxy, Maggat and Igni took a step back, pulling Scyl and Fettid with them.  
  
“You!” Louise said, now safely behind the cover of the door, pointing at a random, almost-lootless, and therefore highly expendable minion. “Loot the sheets.”  
  
She pulled Jessica even further back, and then put her fingers in her ears, waiting for the explosion. Instead, she heard a booming voice declare, “I am the Guardian of the Mirrors! I am your tr _urk_ ,” which was cut off rather suddenly. When she poked her head back in, there were two intact mirrors revealed, and minions playing in the broken glass all over the floor. Two had already managed to put their eyes out, which showed that they were being careful.  
  
“I think that went rather well,” Louise said smugly. “Now. These are the portals?”  
  
“Hmm,” Jessica said. “Well, there are words above the mirrors. One says ‘Entrance’ and the other ‘Exite’.”  
  
Louise blinked. “Uh,” she said, “Does that say ‘entrance’ or ‘entrance’?”  
  
“… what?”  
  
“Oh, come on, it’s simple. Does it say ‘entrance’ or ‘entrance’?”  
  
Jessica twitched her wings in irritation. “I really can’t tell a difference between what you’re saying.”  
  
“If you can’t tell a difference between,” Louise took a breath, trying to control her temper, “me saying ‘en-trants’ and ‘en-traaaaaaahns’, then you should try listening more closely!”  
  
The dark-haired girl looked hurt. “Well, now I can tell the difference. And I still have spider goo in my ears and my head’s still ringing from being that close to your exploding spell!”  
  
“And for that matter,” Louise continued, “that’s not how you spell ‘excite’!”  
  
“Are you sure? Well, maybe they’re just bad at spelling,” Jessica suggested. “Not all of us have expensive spelling-based educations. Heh. Spelling-based. Because, you know, you were learning to be a m…”  
  
“I don’t think that’s actually ‘excite’,” Louise said hastily. “I think it might be misspelt ‘exit’.”  
  
“Or it might be an evil hypnotic mirror designed to trap the mind or arouse you,” Jessica said, reasonably. “That’s not something you want to make a mistake about. How are we meant to tell without fucking up?”  
  
“ _Your wickedness,_ ” Gnarl said to her, “ _if you can find the real mirror, by touching it we should be able to take control of its portal spell and have the Tower Heart override control of the local network, allowing you to leave this place and return when needed._ ”  
  
There was a pause.  
  
“Minions!” Louise yelled. “Get in here!”

* * *

Louise cleared her throat. “So,” she said. “It turns out that ‘Entrance’ is in fact ‘entraaaahns’ and leaves the minion a drooling shell obsessed by its own reflection. But ‘Exite’ is actually just ‘Exit’ spelt wrong, and that a minion who tries to punch the other minion looking at them from the other side of the glass sticks their hand through a portal.”  
  
“How cunning,” Jessica said, shaking her head. “People looking for the secret passage will look in the ‘Entrance’ one first.” She frowned. “But how do we know that’s not just the normal reaction of some of the minions to a mirror?”  
  
That was a very good question, Louise had to admit. Well, there was one way to find out.  
  
“Fine, we’ll see,” she said. “But then we’re headed home for baths.”

* * *

“I never thought it was possible for minions to get even more mindless,” Louise said, letting her legs float in the water. “But it turns out even that is possible. My hair is still a mess, isn’t it? What does it take to get the spider out? It was under the hood and it’s still an ichor-covered mess. Next time, I always bring at least my helmet with me.”  
  
“Oh, this is so good,” said Jessica gratefully, sinking into the steaming water of the bath. “I thought I knew how good a hot bath was after spending a day by a forge. That? That is nothing compared to this. I think I could live perfectly happily if I never saw a spider again in my life.”  
  
Louise, similarly ensconced in a mass of protective bubbles, struggled with herself, but chose not to mention that there was one right above her. Admittedly, it was a conventional spider, rather than a giant demonic arachnid monstrosity, but given how tight all their nerves were it was probably best not to say.  
  
“There’s one right above you!” said Cattleya, cheerfully lathering up her hair.  
  
Louise sighed as Jessica flailed and then restored to firing beams of hellfire from her eyes to rid the world of that most deadly threat. “Do you mind?” the overlady asked. “Hellfire is bad for the ceiling.”  
  
Jessica looked guiltily up at the black scoring. “Ooops,” she said.  
  
“You know, that would have been useful when we were being attacked by the spiders,” Louise continued, mercilessly.  
  
Jessica chuckled nervously, and massaged the back of her neck. “Yeah, I… uh, haven’t really practiced with it. At all. Like, I mostly use it as a bug swatter. Well… a normal-sized-bug swatter. Because it’s kind of a bit pathetic. Like, really pathetic. If Dad had done it, he’d have blown a hole in the ceiling, rather than just… uh, scorch it slightly.” She folded her arms in front of her. “I’m an artist, not a fighter!”  
  
“Yes,” Louise said, meaningfully.  
  
“I wouldn’t say I’m a fighter!” Cattleya said helpfully. “People don’t really fight back.”  
  
“Thank you, Catt.”  
  
“They tend to just sort of die or cower in mindless fear, or sometimes stumble towards me with the lights on but no one home when I do the eye thing on them and…”  
  
“Do you mind?” Louise blinked. “And you can hypnotise people? Catt, you have to tell me these things! How can I devise optimal operational plans without full knowledge of the capacities of my subordinates!”  
  
Cattleya giggled. “Now you’re sounding even more like Dad! And you look adorable when you pout like that!”  
  
The overlady let out a slow breath. “Jessica,” she said, choosing to ignore her big sister, “you saw today that you’re not like Catt… no offense meant… and to be honest, you’re most useful to me for your brains and your ability to make things. You can do things that the minions and I cannot, and…” she paused, trying to shift into a Jessican frame of reference, “if I wanted a demonic lieutenant who would run out and get herself killed, I could go hire one of your cousins. I need you to do what they can’t do – even the red-blonde one just hired someone to make the clothing designs, right?”  
  
Jessica, who had begun to sulk somewhat, nodded as she scrubbed at her skin with a brush. “I suppose that makes a lot more sense,” she said. “My talents are a unique selling point!”  
  
“This way you won’t have to face any more giant spiders,” Louise offered temptingly. And I won’t be tortured for all eternity by your father, she added mentally.  
  
“Well… okay.” The other girl dunked her head under the waters of the bath, surfacing again blowing bubbles. “So. What’s the plan?”  
  
Louise squared her jaw. “Jessica, your first priority will be to help with the repair work of the relay tower. By the time that’s done, I will have acquired a smelter and we can begin larger-scale production of equipment and suchlike. We are working to a deadline here; it must be ready by the first day of spring.” The overlady sunk down in the water, grinning maliciously. “Because on that day, we kidnap the princess!”


	31. In Another Castle 6-4

_“For thousands of years, mankind has dreamed of destroying the sun! But today, I shall go beyond that! I shall exceed the greatest dream of humanity, and I shall devour the sun! It will replace my feeble and decrepit human heart, its power fuelling me and me alone, and through this I shall rule over a blackened world forever! I am invincible! I am unstoppable! I am… you know, my left arm is really hurting. I wonder why? Oh well. Today is the day of my ultim…_ ”  
  
– The last words of Pope Obteneratus III

* * *

Under the crimson light of the full red moon, a windship drifted over the city of Bruxelles. Its crew were short, smelly and none too bright, and for that reason it was flying a Gallian flag. The fact that the crew were each wearing a necklace of onions only helped to support the first impressions, and coincidentally noticeably improved their odour.  
  
However, shockingly, the alleged Gallian nature of the crew was a lie. The diminutive and pungent crew of the ship were in fact the minions of the vile Overlady of the North, working ceaselessly day and night against the causes of righteousness.  
  
At least when they remembered. Or weren’t distracted. Or the overlady was not attempting to secretly use them to further the goals of righteousness while pretending to be Evil. Though they managed to work pretty effectively against the cause of righteousness when being used for righteous goals; quite suspiciously well, in fact. One might even question how righteous the goals of their mistress were.  
  
But that would be vile calumny and slander.  
  
“Tacky cool hopper eight-er, this are eagle one-er,” reported the disguised minion on the mast. “I no see stuff through spyglass. It are broken.”  
  
“Roger… no, eagle one-er, this vessel are doin’ stuff when blind. It are a hot zone out there,” declared the captain.  
  
“No it isn’t,” objected another minion. “It very cold.”  
  
“It are a cold zone out there!” continued the captain, unbashed. “And we gots no warm coats or stuff! So sneaky team one-er will be going in cold.” He gripped tight onto the wheel; not through any choice of his own, but because Maggat had lashed him to it prior to the ship’s departure.  
  
The entire crew was under orders from the overlady, and Gnarl had made those orders explicit. Which was to say, if they didn’t follow the orders they had been given by Louise, explicit things would happen to them. And then keep happening until they had fully paid for their failure.  
  
“We is nearing the drop place.” The brown-skinned captain paused, and in a panic stared at its hands and then its feet, lips moving in furious calculation. “Ten-er four… uh, number what I just said but again,” it said. “Making the drop-thing readiness.”  
  
“Aye, cap’n!” reported a green, stepping smartly past the captain and filching his hat, a particularly nice highwayman’s tricorn. “The droffin are in place! I is ready to go down with it! We is going in cold, because it are really freezing up here!”  
  
“Roger, Roger!”  
  
“What?” yelled the minion on top of the mast. “I tell you, spyglass not worky no more! It are terrible weapon!”  
  
“Not talking to you, Roger!” snapped the captain. “Brave-ooh one-er two-er… er, er, er, more numbers-er! Ten shun on the triple! We is dropping in some time mine-us some other time! Are the crane ready?”  
  
“Oooh rah! It are!” declared a red, pointing at the contraption of wood and rope set up on deck. A coffin was slung in a cradle, hanging over the side.  
  
The green vaulted up onto it, straddling the box. “I are ready!” it declared. “Let’s get this sucker goin’! I is ready for this high attitude hard landin’ drop!”  
  
The captain-minion drew in a deep breath. This was it. This was his big chance. This was his chance to get in with the overlady, to show how he was the bestest-best minion and way better than Maggat and his crew, who were getting all the attention. Why, the overlady probably even knew their names!  
  
“Then we is go! Drop the coffin! We is go go go! Bravo two-er many-er stuff-er! And… eh, where the bloody hell is my hat?”  
  
“Yee haw!”  
  
The captain of this ship of fools stared at the falling coffin and the minion riding it, and screamed in frustration. “That was my hat!” it screamed. “I kill him! I kill him double dead!”

* * *

In the morbid, decadent and thoroughly sinister lair of the dark lady, serried ranks of minions formed up in decidedly sloppy ranks. Their eyes glowed faintly in the gloom, and they were all staring at the older minions at the front. From their slightly smaller size and prominent lack of festooned loot save for identical jackets with plates sewn onto them, it was clear to the educated observer that these were very new minions. Certainly, compared to the garish array of ‘stuff they’d found lying around, often after killing the former owner’ worn by the minions at the front of the audience, they were eminently inferior.  
  
“Let’s get down to busy-ness,” said Maggat, striding up and down the line with his arms behind his back, “to defeat ev’ryone.” He glowered at the newer members of the forces, shamefully lacking in loot. “Did they send me goblins, when I asked for minions?”  
  
“They is a saddest, worthlessest we ever meet,” Maxy said, shaking his head. “But I bet before we done, Maggat, you make minions out of everyone.”  
  
“Nah nah naaaaah,” contributed Scyl.  
  
“Shut up, Scyl,” Maggat said, without looking. “Yes! We give you all stuff you need to know to survive on battlefield! Listen to us, and you might only die… like, three or four times per raid.”  
  
There was a sound of two knives being scraped together. “Yeah!” Fettid said, her pretty new earrings glinting in the light. “We is gonna give you a much-ness of teachingness of the stuff what a minion is needing to be doing for the overlady. “Stuff what is like stabbity, slashity, maimity, hurtity, gougity, sneakiness, looting, dual-stabbity, dealin’ with bein’-alive-again-headaches, makin’ basic stuff into deadly stuff, stabby-stab-stab-stabbity…”  
  
“Minions! Where are you?”  
  
“Oh wait, no time for long training mount age,” Maggat said happily. “We off now. Remember everyone, if you die, do it close to a blue. Overlady getting sort of tetchy ‘bout double-dead rate, and when she tetchy, it not fun for us who is not double-dead. So if you get double-dead for stupid reason, I kill you.”  
  
“Uh, Maggat,” Maxy began, “I not so sure that saying that is log-ick- _owww_.” He massaged his head.  
  
“We here, overlady!” Maggat said loudly. “Bad an’ ready to go!”

* * *

“You still have time left,” Jessica said to Louise reassuringly, fastening a buckle on her adjusted armour. The rest of winter had been used productively. Raids on foundries near the capital – the minions cunningly disguised as goblins, though Louise hadn’t told them that – had allowed them to properly outfit the forge, and her reforged armour was sitting much more comfortably. “Okay, move your arm; let’s see if that’s too tight?”  
  
“I have a schedule I have to keep to, and don’t want them to be late,” Louise said, fretting. “And yes, my arm is fine.” She worked her shoulder. “Breastplate is a little tight, though,” she noted, taking a deep breath.  
  
Louise, you see, had a plan. Not just any plan, either. She had prepared a presentation and given it to Gnarl, Jessica and her sister. The presentation had pictures. And minions carrying new panels in from the left, or sometimes flipping a board over. And most vitally, the plan had a map.  
  
It had been remarkably convenient how when she had poured over maps of the palace, she had discovered that the path from the deep dungeon where the mirror was located led right past one of the royal treasure vaults. Sadly, the mirror was not located in the treasury. That would have been too easy. But royal families were, after all, very fond of keeping their hidden secrets underground – oh boy, was she not looking forwards to the bit where she had to go through an old torture chamber – and when the princess was being kept in the tallest tower there really were not many alternatives.  
  
“Are you sure your thing will work?” she asked Jessica, as the other girl fussed over the set of her surcoat-robe.  
  
“Of course it will,” Jessica said dismissively, adjusting one of the buckles and then giving it a polish with the hem of her top. Which was, Louise noted, another one of her strange black buttonless shirts, this time with the words ‘Kidnap the Princess! Rule the World!’ emblazoned on it in burning letters. Attempts to ask what on earth Jessica was wearing had merely produced the answer that she had made it to support the endeavour and show team spirit. Louise was somewhat concerned that Jessica was showing things to spirits, but then again, she was half-devil. Obviously wicked spirits like that would be allowed to talk to other such beings – it would be just silly otherwise. “It’s very old demonic magic. Very reliable at getting through things like walls and impregnable doors.”  
  
“I just don’t trust it,” Louise insisted.  
  
“Look, it’ll work fine. It’s a well-known alchemical product. Dragon’s breath, a pinch of the screams of a neverborn child, finely powdered aluminium, three cups of blood from imps, bitumen, black gold, wax, a few hundred kilograms of ammonium nitrate, a handful of basalt from the depths of the Abyss, and the skull of a traitor. Though in a pinch, most of those aren’t even needed.”  
  
“Well… fine,” the overlady said cautiously.  
  
“Just stay far away. It’s a powerful magic and may explode you to itty bitty pieces. Call me when you get to the vault and want it sent to you. And, uh… and keep it away from fire. Really.”  
  
“I understand,” Louise said. She understood all about explosions and itty bitty pieces. “Let’s run over the checklist again. Minions armed and armoured, Cattleya in position, the demonic anti-treasury-door magic ready to be brought through once the path to it is clear.” She took a breath. “I have a thirty minute window of opportunity, while everyone is at the midday services to celebrate the first day of spring and the mages who have just summoned their familiars. In that time, I have to get in, get to the treasury, empty it, get to the highest tower, re… kidnap Henrietta, and then get out of there. Yes, I’m tense! I’m working to a deadline here!”  
  
She felt Jessica put a cloth bag in her hand. “What’s this?” she asked, opening it and looking at the yellow-glowing crystals within.  
  
“Oh, well,” Jessica grinned sheepishly. “They started as windstones, but then I got my hands on them. Now they’re soulstones; each one has the life essence of a beetle bound inside.”  
  
“… uh. Thank you?” Louise said, trying not to make it sound like a question and failing.  
  
“You should be able to tap them for magic, or… uh, well, if you find anything in the treasury which needs souls to activate, you should be able to use them instead of having to feed minions to the machinery.”  
  
“Thank you,” Louise said again, privately vowing to avoid having to use them unless she really had to. Mind you, they were only beetle souls… but still! If she started casually doing that, who knew where she might end up? She took a deep breath, and stepped back, striking a pose. “How do I look?”  
  
Jessica clapped her hands together gleefully. “Wonderful!” she said. “It’s just so gloriously malevolent! Remember to get seen on the way out, so we can get a picture for the journals; if you don’t manage, I’ll be watching on the crystal ball to get sketches, but they’ll be worth less to the journals. They’ll say we staged them or went to a drawing shop to change the details; it just isn’t as _real_ if the sketches aren’t coming from the victims!”  
  
“Well,” Louise said, picking up her helmet, and letting the illusion on her glowing eyes fall. Her hair was bound up into a tightly coiled ponytail; Jessica had applied lip paint, and as she slipped the helmet on she felt that there was no going back from this. “Here goes… everything, I suppose. By the end of today, Princess Henrietta should be in my hands.”  
  
“Next year in Los Diablos!” Jessica cheered with a whoop.  
  
Louise sighed. “You know, the princess and I were childhood playmates,” she said. “Obviously, she couldn’t be playing with even members of the middle nobility, let alone _poor people_ , and I’m only a year younger than her and back then, my parents used to spend a lot more time in the capital. We used to get in so much trouble, and she had all these wonderful ideas which were so much fun. But… oh, I wonder how much she’s changed? How much I’ve changed?”  
  
“It’ll go fine,” Jessica said confidently.  
  
“And let’s just hope I don’t need my insurance policy,” Louise said darkly. “And that she remembers that she’s an insurance policy. And doesn’t, you know, get distracted and start picking off guards.”

* * *

In the belfry, Louise’s insurance policy hung upside down by her feet, and idly considered picking off guards. Then she remembered she wasn’t meant to be doing that, and got back to her reading. She had been so clever to load her coffin – which now resided hidden on a rooftop – up with books. It meant she had something to do while waiting. This one was really interesting; she had borrowed it from Jessica, and it was all about some mages going to school and secretly worshipping demons and trying to kill a Dark Lord who was an evil dead vole or something, Cattleya wasn’t quite sure what was going on there, but she certainly wanted to keep reading. And it was long past her bedtime; it was almost midday! Her body was telling her it should have been asleep almost six hours ago.  
  
She beat it down. It was not in full possession of the facts. And was also a horrific dead monster which burned in the sunlight.  
  
Cattleya really did hate her role in the plan. Yes, it was true that she was the only one of her sister’s allies who could be dropped out of a windship in a coffin over the palace, and sneakily sneak into the place, to get up to the belltower at the dome of the main building. The whole place was just _littered_ with holy symbols and wardings against the undead and other such mean horrible things, but luckily she had had a minion with her. And while holy symbols made of blessed silver could technically turn a minion, what they turned them to was ‘prying the holy symbol from the wall and looting it’.  
  
They were so useful! And so adorable!

* * *

“What was that noise?” Louise asked suspiciously.  
  
“What noise?” Maggat asked, hands behind his back and whistling an innocent tune. “Oh, you mean the screamy noise?”  
  
“Yes,” the overlady said crisply, “I meant the ‘screamy’ noise. Which was a scream.”  
  
“Ah.” Maggat nodded solidly. “I think it probably torture chamber where people who say rude things about council go. That what this kinda place have, you know. Forgemistress say the one here place six in top ten torture chambers competition in her Abyssy journal.”  
  
“Well, they are my hated foes,” Louise said slowly. “Fine. We can’t stop for rests.”  
  
“No, we gots to get the shiny loot and the princess loot,” Maxy interjected, having finished flailing his hands at Igni and Fettid who were stuffing a corpse into a barrel. “No time for wastingness.”

* * *

Time to think about happier stuff! Ooh! Like how she really liked her new outfit, which was much more useful for this kind of sneaky thing! And it was still in that tasty shade of red, so that was just peachy! It was so useful that she still had the unicorn, no matter what her sister had said.  
  
Yes, her sister had turned almost the same shade when she had first seen it, but Cattleya felt Louise was sometimes a bit young in some ways. It was perfectly decent for a proper lady to dress appropriately for the situation, and it wasn’t as if she was showing any flesh. In fact, she was specifically not exposing anything, because the job of all this red-dyed leather and the darkened glass lenses and armoured quick-release feeding section on the mouth was to avoid exposing her to any sunlight. And so she could go around and do things in the day, and as long as she kept out of direct sunlight and didn’t fall asleep she even had her powers!  
  
Jessica was really really clever about such things! And so cute when she was being enthusiastic. And that thing she had worn on her trip with Louise looked really good in red, especially when Cattleya was slimmer than she was. The vampire turned another page, and tried not to look at all the scary scary fireworks which she had secreted around the bellfry.  
  
“I mustn’t run away,” she whispered to herself. Wait, no. Not run away. That wasn’t what she needed not to do – though she did need to not do that, because it was daylight outside and running away would get her burnt. That was really, really scary and no wonder she was tense.  
  
Ah! Yes! She wasn’t meant to tear anyone’s throats out. Or ‘do anything else which is like tearing throats out, even if technically their throat is still intact’. Louise had been very specific about that.  
  
Her sister was so mean sometimes. Even if she was right. She really shouldn’t do it. It would be bad for their reputations as good people if they killed lots of guards rescuing the princess. But wait. It would be bad for their reputations as bad people if they killed lots of guards when they kidnapped the princess. How on Earth was she meant to tell those two things apart! It was all so confusing!  
  
Oh yes, her sister had explained to her that she wasn’t meant to kill people. So she wouldn’t. Because her little sister got the whole planning thing much easier, and also wasn’t a cursed queen of the night driven to feed off the living yet never know the kiss of the rays of the sun. Which, Cattleya knew full well, somewhat affected her judgement.  
  
Hopefully she wouldn’t have to play around with horrible fire at all, but sometimes her sister’s plans didn’t work exactly like she might have wanted them to, so it was best to be safe.  
  
“ _Countess, I’m at the entrance to the vault now!_ ” her sister’s voice came in. “ _Any attempts to raise the alarm?_ ”  
  
“Nope,” Cattleya answered. “Some patrolling guards, but nothing out of the ordinary. I can see the parade through the streets! It’s really, really good to see daylight again, even if this dark glass is in the way!”  
  
“ _Fine. Keep an eye out. And don’t kill anyone. It’s been very quiet at my end too; only a few guards, and I locked them in a cell and then dropped the key down some stairs, so they’re going to need an earth mage to get them out. Overlady continuing with her mission._ ” A pause. “ _Also, don’t kill anyone, Catt._ ”  
  
It was so very mean how her sister didn’t trust her, Cattleya thought sadly, before turning another page of her book. She’d already told her that.

* * *

Louise sighed, and cut the spell from the gauntlet. She was very afraid her big sister was going to lose control and kill someone, but… no, she should trust her. And as long as Louise didn’t accidentally raise the alarm, Cattleya could stay up there until nightfall, and then sneak out on a cart to get over the Senne and get to one of the relays which would get her home.  
  
As long as nothing went horribly wrong.  
  
“ _Ahem. My overlady,_ ” Gnarl said to her. “ _I have something you might wish to hear._ ”  
  
“What is it Gnarl?” she asked.  
  
“ _Your wickedness, I have discovered something of interest. I enquired after a precise list of the prisoners in the basement. They’re mostly a pathetic lot, with no real skills. Quite a few enemies of the duc de Richelieu, some petty traitors. Almost no one with any real skills who you might be able to recruit – most of them have apparently been moved to secret prisons run by the duc. But there is one person; Foquet of the Ruined Tower, the infamous thief, is a prisoner here and has been since the praised Hero Guiche de Gramont caught her. If you were to spring her from jail, you may be able to recruit her to your cause. And we might at the very least find out what she did with some of the artefacts she stole from the bloody vampire who was your predecessor!_ ”  
  
Louise pursed her lips. “That would leave no time in the schedule,” she said, flatly.  
  
“ _Yes, overlady. You will need to balance the increased risk against the aid you might get from such a famous thief, if you can get her on your side._ ”  
  
The overlady took a deep breath. Contemplated the odds. “We stick to the plan,” she said. “I’m not going to risk screwing this up because I got greedy. Princess Henrietta is my objective; I’m not going to risk failing in that.”  
  
“ _As you wish, your wickedness. After all, aren’t a princess and the contents of a treasure vault enough of a prize?_ ”  
  
Louise nodded. “Hurry up and get those things in place!” she ordered. She needed to have the things which would break the door to the vault in place _first_ before she went up to Princess Henrietta, because setting them off would be loud, but she wanted to be ready. One of her reserve plans, if things went topsy turvy, was to set off the demonic explosives while escaping from another exit, thus providing a handy distraction.  
  
She watched in satisfaction as browns moved some of the last crates into place. “Does that look right?” she asked Jessica through the Gauntlet.  
  
“ _Yep! Primed and ready._ ”  
  
“Overlady!” Scyl said, bouncing up and down enthusiastically.  
  
“No, you cannot set off the explosives now,” Louise snapped automatically.  
  
“No, no, I not ask that like reds,” the blue-skinned minion said calmly. “What I think is we not need boomy to get through door.”  
  
“Oh really?” Louise said, resorting to sarcasm against the minion, which was sadly much like trying to blind a human by shining radio waves in his eyes. “And I assume we will just walk on through, then?”  
  
“Yes. We just walk through giant metal door.”  
  
Beneath her helmet, one eye twitched.  
  
“Because it not locked. See!” Scyl said, pushing the door.  
  
Louise opened her mouth. Louise closed her mouth. Louise opened her mouth again. “Oh, you have to be f… flipping kidding me,” she managed, staring at how it was now ajar. She boggled. This clearly had to be a trap. “Minions!” she snapped, “go open the door.” Then she ducked around a solid stone corridor.  
  
There failed to be fire. Lightning was likewise absent. Nothing whatsoever sent forth even the meanest breeze of a flesh-flensing wind to scourge the corridor of life. And as for the paucity of poison or the inadequate lack of imprisoning ice… well, there was something in Louise which was left feeling vaguely cheated. Though not cheated enough not to step through the door, after carefully checking that minions had trodden on all the paving slabs she stepped on.  
  
It was… emptier than she might have expected. She could say that not only because she had certain expectations for what should be in one of the royal treasure vaults, but also more critically there were unfaded marks on the walls which clearly should have had things there.  
  
Under her helmet, Louise pouted. That was very unfair! Someone had clearly half-emptied out this treasure vault already, and they weren’t doing it for a fundamentally righteous cause like she was! That could not stand!  
  
Still, there were some things left. “Empty it out!” she ordered her minions, drifting over towards a delicate glass cabinet which was protecting a single book. Goodness. That must have been the royal family’s copy of the Founder’s Prayer Book, one ancient artefact which had allegedly belonged to the Founder himself. Oh, certainly, heretics – or at least Gallians, Albionese, Romalians, Iberians, Germanians and quite a few other nations – argued that this wasn’t the real prayer book and that the claimants had it, but that was ridiculous. She knew they were flawed by the way they weren’t Tristainian, but that was no reason to be quite so dense.  
  
It was ancient beyond belief, and incredibly holy. There was no way it should be left in the hands of the Council. She should take it, and make sure she gave it to Princess Henrietta, who could keep it safe.  
  
Though she would need to be subtle about this.  
  
Fettid leapt onto the glass, stabbed it repeatedly, and then ran off tittering like a child in a sweet shop.  
  
… that also worked, Louise had to agree, picking it up in her left hand. Yes, it was the famed blank prayer book of the Royals; she would need to keep this safe.  
  
“Overlady!” Igni said cheerfully, now wearing a beaked knight’s helmet on top of his head, the armour having failed to get over his horns, “I find ring! Precious! For you!”  
  
Louise took the ring.

* * *

_How many hands has she known over the countless years? A hundred? A thousand? She lost count long ago. So many hands. All different. Some brutish and gnarled, some delicate and cruel, a few entirely missing and so she ended up fused to the stump. She never liked those ones. It always felt rather like cheating._  
  
“Tyrant!” she hears. “Today is the day you die!”  
  
_Yes, they always say that, don’t they? Or things of that ilk. Countless repetitions have worn thin any novelty. If only that sort would be more imaginative in their challenges. Oh, boo hoo hoo, you burned down my village, killed my parents and used their life energy to make more minions. Cry some more, big baby. And the worst thing is how they never even specify which village it was. It’s really thoughtless of them!_  
  
_Ah, but this was one of the earlier ones, wasn’t it? Was it?_  
  
“Fiend! You’ll pay for what you did to the dragons! And the dwarves! And the halflings! And the northern elves! And all those innocent baby seals. And…”  
  
Her master chuckles. “Please, if you start listing everyone I’ve wiped out, you loud-mouthed halfling, you’ll be here until you die.”  
  
_A blur of motion. She is flung out imperiously, and she moans in joy as the dark energy courses through her._  
  
“Well, I say ‘halfling’, but she’s really more of a quarterling now,” her master says drily. “Oh, I’m sorry? Was I meant to hold off the killing spells while I waited for you to finish posturing? Incidentally, the elf with the bow might want to get ready to cast his charming little Counter spell, because I could do it any moment like… now!”  
  
_She is thrown out imperiously again, but the energy which passes through her is weak, pathetic, shaky. A feint. She hears a thunderous detonation, and something warm and wet hits her._  
  
“Goodness gracious me. It’s almost like the Firstborn _filth_ among you can’t trust the spirits in my territory. You think to draw upon them? To have them protect you? From me, when I let them suckle on the power I give freely to them and ask nothing in return? Ha ha. And… oh, my.”  
  
_She feels the pulsing shudder of her master’s laughter, and hears the scream and the tearing of flesh._  
  
“Oh dearie, dearie me. And there goes the dwarf. Looks like someone drank from the Fountain of Immortality outside. It does exactly what it says, you know; his flesh is now immortal – and reproducing out of control. You fools – I never thought anyone would actually fall for that. Who do you think will die next? The other elf, who doesn’t have a drop of magic to use which doesn’t rely on calling on my spirits? I offered you a peace treaty, Sasha; you could have said yes, and bought a hundred years or so while I finished wiping out the dwarves. Maybe the dragon, who’s already dying from the toxins ravaging his system? Or your little pet Markay wizard? I wonder how all his brains would look on the outside?”  
  
_She is raised into the air, and she lets out her cry._  
  
“Why, I think I’ll just swarm you with minions.”

* * *

Louise put down the ring, hands shaking. Or, rather, she put down the golden band. The gemstone had vanished from it, and now adorned the back of the gauntlet of her left hand, over one of the knuckles. And that was very suspicious in its own right, because she had picked the ring up with her right hand.  
  
She raised the gauntlet, staring at the back of her hand. The world felt detached, strange, and almost dreamlike. She looked at the prayer book held in her gauntleted hand, and her eyes widened. It was no longer blank!  
  
“Foreword,” Louise read. “Henceforth, I shall record the truth I know. All materials in the world are comprised of fine grains. The four branches intervene with these fine grains and apply an influence, which tr…” and that was where the words she could read ended. After that, there was a scrawl of evil burning malevolent runes over the top of the original words. She could see the occasional bits under the new text, but she couldn’t follow the flow.  
  
And it was a completely different language of evil burning malevolent runes than the one she could read! The characters were completely different! Was the later text in another hand, or the same one?  
  
She couldn’t tell.  
  
And she needed to focus on the here and now! She did the strange hand gesture to transport the prayer book back to her treasury. The minions, for their part, were very efficient, prompt, and punctual at stripping the entire room bare. She would have called them locusts, but a plague of locusts had nothing on a gaggle of minions who were presented with shiny things. She sent some carrying the contents of the treasure vault back to the mirror through which she had entered, and issued dire threats about how they were not to get distracted and how their sole duty was getting all her new loot back.  
  
Attended by the remaining – and almost all better-equipped – minions, Louise set back off, climbing out of the dungeons. She was already behind her initial plan, because that had assumed that she would pillage the vault after she kidna… wait, no, _rescued_ the princess. So she had to move quickly.  
  
By the time she reached the top of the tower Henrietta was confined in, her legs were aching. Full armour was not meant for this kind of thing! Some of her minions had also acquired elements of maid outfits, from innocent maids along the way, though Louise had been very strict about not killing them. Still, she was feeling somewhat guilty about all the underdressed maids now occupying closets and doors which had been locked before minions happened.  
  
“Overlady!” Fettid whispered, a maidly headdress taken from a dark-haired girl now occupying her head. “There are a woman in front of the door you is wanting to go to. She is having many shineys on her head.”  
  
Louise blinked, her mind whirring. “The queen?” she whispered to herself, looking around wildly. Opening the nearest door, she pointed a finger. “Everyone in!” she hissed; for once, they obeyed. Stepping through herself, she hushed the minions, listening as hard as she could. She could just about hear the voices.  
  
“… I am giving you yet another chance, you spoiled brat! All you need to do is confess your wicked sins to Lord and Founder in public, at the ceremony! I am already late for it because of you! If you just beg for forgiveness for your slatternly ways, I will let you out of here!”  
  
“No, mother,” she heard, faintly.  
  
“That… you little chit! If your father was alive, who knows what he’d say! Well, you can stay in here! You shameless little brat!”  
  
Louise heard the stomp of the queen past the room, and her heart nearly stopped when her monarch stopped and sniffed. “What is that stench?” she heard the other woman ask. “What do the maids think they’re doing?”  
  
The overlady could breathe again when the queen passed, although not too deeply because she was occupying a room full of minions. Letting herself out after a suitable wait, she gulped down cleaner air, and snuck up to the princess’ door.  
  
There was a thump almost exactly like someone had kicked a pillow at the wall. “Stupid hypocritical horrible worthless hag!” she heard her princess, her friend hiss harshly. “I… I’m never going to… to publically embarrass myself for… for _daring_ to love someone! Oh, I know all about the stories about you! Okay, Henrietta, Henrietta, calm down. Stay calm. She’s just saying it to hurt you because… because she’s a hag. Don’t listen to her!”  
  
Louise felt her chest flutter, and swallowed deeply. This was it.  
  
Nine months of necessary evil had gone into this moment, and now that it was upon her, she felt sick. Heart a beating drum within her chest, Louise de la Vallière crept up to the slot in the door, and peered through the bars at the princess.


	32. In Another Castle 6-5

_“There are some who abhor love; who speak of it as a chain. They have no romance in their hearts! Love is wonderful; love is glorious! I have loved each of my wives in turn, and for their part they gave themselves to me; mind, body and soul. It reveals men and women for what they really are. Without love, life would be empty and sad. And it would be much harder to control people by threatening their loved ones.”_  
  
–  Louis de la Vallière, the Bloody Duke

* * *

It is traditional to talk about the beauty of princesses when kidnapping and/or rescuing them, and make all kinds of florid metaphors comparing them to flowers, morning sunrises, the songs of birds, and other things of that ilk. Often, their hair is like gold and is long and flowing, and never suffers from inconvenient knots or tangles. Some might note that for all their well-behaved hair, their garments mysteriously tear in a revealing manner, but that is surely not deliberate. Trapped piteously in their deprotagonising captivity, they must wile away the hours looking delicately ornamental.  
  
However, honesty compels us to note that while Princess Henrietta was indeed fairly pretty, she mostly looked sulky and somewhat red in the face. And that her hair was not like flowing gold, not even metaphorically, and thus she was not the prettiest blond in the kingdom – that was Guiche de Gramont. And that, rather than moping over some lost love or singing beauteous tunes about the prince who would someday rescue her, she was instead muttering as she punched a pillow.  
  
Well, maybe she was moping a little, but she wasn’t being very elegant about it. Henrietta de Tristain came from a long line made up of approximately equal measures of shining heroes, blood-stained tyrants, fair beautiful maidens (who later ceased being maidens, but remained fair and beautiful) and wicked witch-queens. As a result, while her features and feminine attributes were of course those of a beautiful gentlewoman cruelly harassed by the world/sinister seductive temptress seeking only power and control, she also had a certain stockiness about the shoulders which came from twenty generations of – usually, but not only male – ancestors being expected to be able to casually smash in the skull of an insubordinate peasant/vile enemy of righteousness. Which her pillow was finding to its cost. And which had only been further accentuated by nine months of captivity with little to do but exercise.  
  
It was at that point, however, that the princess heard a whispering outside her door, accompanied by a peculiar odour. It wasn’t that it was a bad smell… okay, it was. But it was strangely organic and animalistic, rather than strictly repugnant. The nose was quite aware that it didn’t want to smell any more of it, even if it was not entirely sure what it was that it was smelling.  
  
Putting down her pillow, and picking up the closest thing on the table – a candlestick – she strained to hear the whispering.  
  
“… I still no see why we no can breach-an’-clear-on-zoo-loo,” a cruel, inhuman voice said.  
  
“Because I don’t trust you with explosives,” said another, more human voice. Henrietta frowned. There was something familiar about it. “Out of the way.”  
  
“Overlady is mean overlady,” another grumbling voice protested.  
  
Henrietta blinked, grasping her candlestick tight in both hands. Overlady? She hadn’t heard what she had just thought she had, had she? No, clearly not. That was ridiculous. That was stupid. That was… by the Founder, was the bit around the door’s lock glowing red hot? She recoiled away, clinging close to her improvised weapon.  
  
“Help!” she tried.  
  
The lock fell out of the door with a heavy thunk, and the entrance to her chamber swung open. Standing in the hallway was a frightful figure in malevolent armour, eyes blazing under the shadows of – her? Their? Probably her – helmet. In one hand, she held a staff, with a sinister flame the colour of inflamed flesh hissing and crackling on the end. Around the dark figure was a horde of wicked goblins, dressed in… well, they were certainly dressed! That much she could say, though words escaped her.  
  
“Don’t come any closer!” she shrieked. “I mean it! I…”  
  
The next thing she knew was a glass bottle hitting her in the head. And then there was just blackness.

* * *

“When I said ‘Use the sleeping potion to put her to sleep’,” Louise said tartly, glaring at the minions, “I meant ‘soak a rag in it and hold it to her face’. That is why I said ‘soak a rag in it and hold it to her face’. I did not, in any way, say ‘throw the bottle at her head’.”  
  
“But we put rag in bottle so it soaked,” one of the minions pointed out reasonably.  
  
Louise let out a slow breath. “One week in the dungeon when we get back,” she said, trying to control her temper. “I’m really very sorry, Ann,” Louise apologised to the unconscious girl as she was minionhandled into the sack. She really was sorry, too. But she couldn’t make it look like Henrietta had gone willingly. She also couldn’t get distracted with _explaining_ and _justifying_ and all those sorts of things. She was acting in Henrietta’s best interests, and so couldn’t risk her screaming or calling for help. In fact, it reduced the chance she might need to kill all the guards, so really, knocking Henrietta out and sticking her in a sack like this was really the moral choice.  
  
She could always explain later, anyway.  
  
“One princess, looted!” Maggat reported. “This are awful wicked! We only loot one princess before, an’ she were all old!”  
  
Louise blinked. Technically, she was on a deadline here. However, she had to know; “When did _you_ abduct a princess before?” she asked, trying to keep the shock out of her voice.  
  
“Oh, ages and ages ago,” Maggat said casually. “I no know her name no more.”  
  
“It were the dough-a-ger princess Elizabeth of Albion,” Maxy interjected. “She ancient, and her hip break when we put her in sack. The hip of your princess no break when we put her in sack, so it already going much betterer than last time!”  
  
“… right,” Louise said, after some thought. “Yes. Yes, if you break any of her bones – or all of her bones – I will have the whole lot of you killed painfully, brought back, and then killed again. So don’t! I mean it!”  
  
The overlady balled her gauntleted fist up, and tapped it against her lips. “Cattleya, Jessica, Gnarl,” she sent, “I have the princess in custody. Report on anything blocking my routes out of here.”  
  
“ _Uh… out in the sunlight, looks like the procession is coming back from the cathedral,_ ” Cattleya reported. “ _I can’t see too much from here, but it’s on the way back. You’re probably not going to be able to leave through the front._ ”  
  
“What?” Louise hissed. “That doesn’t make any sense. The queen only left for it a few minutes ago.” She pursed her lips. “The queen always normally gives a speech and… it’s the first day of spring! She should be there!”  
  
“ _Yeah, that’s definitely weird,_ ” Jessica chimed in. “ _Portal network is still up and good; that way’s clean, if you can get down to the basement._ ”  
  
“ _Ah, yes, your evilness. The dear little minions on the windship have faithfully been waiting for your call, if you wish to arrange a pick-up,_ ” Gnarl said.  
  
“ _A glorious escape by airship would be pretty dramatic!_ ” Jessica said. “ _Man, there’d be so many drawings of it._ ”  
  
Louise paused. Took a breath. Considered her options. “I’m not taking the risk,” she said. “We have the princess, and I want to get back safe and sound. And being chased by the Dragon Knights is not part of my plan. We'll head out back through the mirror in the dungeons again. Gnarl, keep the windship in position until we are safely back at the tower, then order it back. I want to keep it safe for later use.”  
  
“ _As you wish, your wickedness._ ”  
  
The overlady looked around the room. “Minions, loot and move out,” she ordered. Her knuckles tightened around her staff, fire flaring to life on its own. “I want to leave the Council my little… message. And that means I need lots and lots of clear stone to write on.”

* * *

“Well,” said the duc de Richelieu, cheeks flushing slightly. “I see things here have gone more tits up than a colony of great tits taking off on the first day of spring. Which is today. And which I saw this morning.” He glowered at the interior of the cell. “Would anyone mind telling me why the princess is missing, and there is a message in burning runes carved into the inside of her cell saying ‘I have your princess. The Council will surrender themselves to me, or she will remain in my custody’? Especially since the writing is getting rather cramped towards the end.”  
  
“Oops, sorry, your grace,” said his manservant, shifting away from where he had been standing on the bit which said ‘signed, the Overlady of the North’.  
  
“Rikkert, you imbecility,” the duc said, slapping his manservant over the back of the head and then wiping his hand on the wall. “Did you not think I might need to read what the writing says?”  
  
“The words ain’t saying anything, your grace,” said Rikkert le Chauve.  
  
“Ah. I have my answer. No, you were not thinking. Full stop,” he said. “Wardes, what do you think?”  
  
“I think the Overlady of the North has kidnapped the princess,” the Viscount de Wardes said, elegant in pale grey which matched his hair. His eyes looked distant as he glanced over the scene, uncaring. “Well, we will need to sweep to see if she has left the…”  
  
There was a fanfair of trumpets, and the queen entered from behind the two men.  
  
“Ah, Richelieu, Wardes. Oh, was I late for the ceremony?” the queen said, blinking heavily.  
  
“Yes, your majesty,” the duc de Richlieu said, inclining his head. “You were haranguing your daughter for no less than two hours and fifty four minutes, according to the staff. This is less than usual, and clearly a sign of your forgiving nature. Most days you hit the three hour mark.”  
  
“But why didn’t the servants remind me?” she asked.  
  
“Your majesty,” the duke said, raising one eyebrow, “you gave the servants quite clear instructions that no one was to approach you when you were scolding your daughter.”  
  
“I did?”  
  
“Yes, your majesty, you did. Very imperiously. And threatened them with being fired without references if they did disturb you.” He coughed. “It appears your daughter has been kidnapped and…”  
  
A distant muffled thud shook the tower, and the queen screamed and fainted.  
  
“Oh, what now?” asked the duc de Richelieu, palm going to his forehead.

* * *

Large amounts of the basement and the dungeons of the palace were on fire. Some of it had been on fire, before collapsing rubble had extinguished the flames. And in between the screaming, the burning, and the crashing, a minion from the “cleanup squad” hummed cheerfully to himself as he rumaged around underneath his melodramatic black cloak.  
  
The name “clean-up squad” was blatant lies, because their real job was to make a big mess or two. Maybe three.  
  
Messes had been made.  
  
“Oooh!” Scyl said happily. “Igni went to the dead place.” Pulling out a spatula from under his stolen black cape, the blue-skinned minion began scraping his compatriot from the wall. “I hope he make some friends there.” With a contented grin, the minion glanced around. “Nice explosions,” he said. “Pretty.”  
  
The flattened minion flopped from the wall, brains oozing out of his ears.  
  
“Well, soon have you back on your footsies,” Scyl said. “Oh dear. I see the blackpowder in your pockets went boomie. You no have a coat any more. You need to loot a new one. And your helmet hat are a gonner.”  
  
Igni said nothing, being temporarily dead.  
  
“I wonder if this is what overlady meant when she say we should clean up escape route and remove signs we was here?” the blue pondered to himself again, out loud. “That what overladies and overlords usually mean. ‘Oh minions, go dispose of the evidence’. Proper thing to do. There no way they tell we leave through mirror when everything on fire.”  
  
Blue light coalesced around his hands, and surged into Igni’s body.  
  
“Igni! You no is dead no more!” Scyl said delightedly, giving him a big hug.  
  
“My head…” the red groaned, pulling himself to his feet. “What is happening to my hat?”  
  
“It are a gonner,” Scyl said sadly.  
  
“Noooooooooooo!” screamed the red, falling to his knees again.  
  
“Well, at least you make plenty of friends on trip,” Scyl remarked.  
  
“What is you, stupid? No, I not make friends! Because I dead!”  
  
“Oh, that shame. Maybe you meet someone nice next time you die.” The blue coughed. “We go now? Else maybe all other minions drink reward drinkies.”  
  
“I drink mug to my doomed hat,” Igni said, sadly. “In remembering.”

* * *

The minions’ afterparty was in full sway. Louise had been invited to join by Jessica, who was drinking goblinoids under the table. She wasn’t sure what her sister’s maid was doing there, either, but she did not ask these things.  
  
Anyway, she had more important things to think of. And drinking with minions – who weren’t Gnarl, at least – would never end well.  
  
She made a note to be particularly merciless to Jessica tomorrow when the other girl was hungover. She had brought this on herself.  
  
Letting herself into the room she had prepared for the princess, she noted with satisfaction that it was both considerably larger and considerably more comfortable than the room which Henrietta had been confined to in the palace. She had told Jessica to work out the dosage that her friend had got from having a bottle of sleeping potion thrown at her head, and she should be waking up about… now.  
  
About now.  
  
…  
  
Now?  
  
Well, maybe she hadn’t taken account of the blow to the head from the bottle, Louise considered, taking one of the books down from the bookshelf which she had half-filled with things she liked. The other half was filled with things Jessica liked, which was something which was worrying her. She might as well take a chance to vet what the half-incubus had picked out.  
  
She was a third of a way through one of Jessica’s books, about a race of talking mice who were busy rounding up all the talking rats and weasels and imprisoning them in camps. She was raising an eyebrow at the lurid descriptions of how the 'unclean' vermin were being systematically slaughtered, when Henrietta began to stir. Quickly, she put the book back, and stood up, brushing down her dr… her armour. She should have changed! But she had been sure that Henrietta had been about to wake up and…  
  
“My head,” Henrietta groaned, clutching the red mark on her forehead. Pulling herself up onto her elbows, she looked at the armoured figure with the glowing eyes at the end of her bed, and screamed.  
  
Well, it wasn’t much of a scream. It was more of a yelp of surprise, come to think of it. A slightly weary one.  
  
“Princess Henrietta,” Louise said. “I…”  
  
“Another kidnapping? Oh well.” The other girl looked Louise up and down. “Aren’t you a little short for a foe to all righteousness?” Henrietta asked suspiciously.  
  
Louise worked her mouth uselessly, lost for words. “Another?” she managed.  
  
Henrietta laughed. It was a bitter, self-mocking laugh. “Oh goodness, yes,” she said. “You’ll be my eleventh kidnapping attempt – three of them successful, although no one has tried in almost a year. It seems you – unimaginative at that – villains aren’t interested in damaged goods.”  
  
“You’re not damaged!” Louise blurted out.  
  
One of the other girl’s eyebrows crocked upwards, and she frowned. “My all-so-wise mother and her ever-so-loyal councillors seem to think I am,” she said, unhappily. “And so do the rest of the wretched stinking useless forces of Evil, who can’t even get their act together to kidnap a princess who’s locked up in a tower. Which incidentally, should really be a Hero’s job to free me, in my opinion, but it seems modern Heroes are just _worthless_.” She sighed. “Well, at least you’re female, so hopefully you’re just in it for a ransom, or maybe concessions from my mother. Honesty compels me to inform you that the stupid cow won’t give you all you want. And if you want to listen to the smug crowing of lecherous fools all across the land, I’m apparently worthless as a virgin sacrifice, so you’re out of luck there.”  
  
Louise shifted uncomfortably.  
  
As if Henrietta could read her expression from under the helmet, Henrietta laughed that dreadful laugh again. “And look at me. Blabbering my heart out to the villain who’s presumably got me locked in her dungeons, because I’m so insanely bored that the maids who come every few days are the only people who I get to talk to who don’t harangue me and call me wicked and depraved and slatternly. Do you know how it feels? Th-that the only p-people who I get to talk to who don’t say horrid things are the maids who change my b-b-bed linens and the like?”  
  
“Oh, Henrietta,” Louise sighed. “I’m so sorry for you. Those horrid traitors have been just… well, horrid! And your mother has brought shame to the royal family with the way she’s treated you!”  
  
There was silence.  
  
“Louise Françoise,” the princess whispered in a tiny voice. “It’s… it’s you? You’re… evil? They… they said you were dead. And… and… your eyes are glowing and…”  
  
Louise removed her helmet, letting it fall to the ground with a clatter. “I’m not dead,” she reassured Henrietta, and paused. “Or undead,” she added, because she felt that bore clarifying. “And before you start thinking that I’m some evil plan of the overlady, who’s taken on my form or… or okay, I’m not sure how I can persuade you that I’m not being mind-controlled, because surely that’s what I’d be told to say now and…” her shouldered slumped, “I’m making a mess of this, aren’t I?”  
  
“You’ve fallen to Evil, Louise Françoise!” Henrietta protested. “Yes, I am sure it’s you, but… you’re Evil!”  
  
Louise looked around. “It’s all an act,” she whispered, leaning over the end of the bed. “I’m pretending to be a villain so I could rescue you and go against the Crown to make sure you were safe and out of the hands of traitors. I’ve already taken out the comte de Mott, and when I take out the rest of the traitors of the Council, you can ‘defeat’ the Overlady of the North, and 'rescue' me from jail where I’ve been trapped for over a year!”  
  
Henrietta blinked. Swallowed. “You… you did all that for me?” she asked in a small voice.  
  
Louise nodded, her heart pounding like a drum. The look of gratitude on her friend's face made her head reel. “I did,” she whispered. “I’ve been working on this since last summer and… and I’ve actually managed it. You’re safe and… and, oh it went exactly as planned! Mostly! Pretty much! Ish!”  
  
“Louise Françoise!” Henrietta declared, “you’re the best friend I’ve ever had! The… the only real one, too!”  
  
The overlady felt her throat choke up. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Now, although we’re telling people that you’re my captive, I’m certainly not going to keep you locked up in here. I’ve got a library and…”  
  
“You always did like your books, Louise Françoise,” Henrietta said, smiling, “but no! I need to look more like I’m your captive! You’re taking a dreadful risk admitting it to me like this.” She tapped her chin. “You can’t let it get out that you’re really good,” she said, “so you’re going to have to keep everything looking normal for a kidnapping. Don't worry; I'll help you make it look authentic. I have experience.”  
  
“We can work out a plan later,” Louise said. “I’m going to change into something more comfortable, and then I’ll be back. We can take you to Jessica and talk about getting you some clothes tomorrow, when she’s still hungover and won’t question things too much.”  
  
“Jessica?”  
  
“She’s my tailor and forgemistress,” Louise said, with a shrug. “She’s a little bit strange, but I’m sure you’ll get along fine. Oh, and my older sister, Cattleya, is also helping, but… drat! Drat, drat, drat!”  
  
“What?” Henrietta asked, alarmed.  
  
“I forgot to tell her that it was safe for her to leave the tower!” Louise said. “I’m going to have to… oh, how could I forget that? She’s all the way back in Bruxelles!”  
  
“What?” the princess asked, shocked. “You locked your sister in a tower?”  
  
“Oh, no. No, she was watching one of the escape routes I could have used. And also she was there to stop them raising the alarm.”  
  
“That’s fine, then,” Henrietta said. “Come to think of it, we should probably have plans for escaping, just in case your underlings usurp you, or we have to get out quickly if my mother sends thugs after me. I’ll be sure to grow my hair long, so I can get out! No matter what, I am never going back in her room! Never!” she exploded.  
  
“I promise I won’t let them take you back,” Louise said, gazing deeply into her eyes as if she could make it true with her stare alone. “And… uh, how would long hair help?”  
  
“Oh,” Henrietta said, blushing faintly. “Well… I was sort of thinking of one of my great-great-aunts, who also got locked in a tower. She grew her hair out really long, long enough to make a rope, and sung at the window, calling curious knights to her who ventured to where she was imprisoned to see the mysterious beautiful singer.”  
  
“Ah,” Louise said knowingly. “Well, you have quite a long way to go until your hair gets long enough for that.”  
  
“And then when she was ready, she made her hair into a noose, threw it down over one of the knights, who choked to death, and then she pulled his corpse up into her room. She then dressed herself in his armour, armed herself with his wand, and killed the three-headed dog which was guarding the tower entrance. Oh, and then she brought it back as her undead steed, and rode off, never to be seen again.” Henrietta cocked her head. “Although it is somewhat suspicious that the queen at the time, her twin sister, suddenly had quite a radical shift in personality, and the king was mauled by a great undead hound while hunting and was reduced to an invalid. But I’m sure that was just a coincidence.”  
  
“Uh…” Louise said. “That’s… not the version of the story I heard.”  
  
“Well, the family hushed it up,” Henrietta said awkwardly. “Oh, Louise-Francoise, I am so glad to see you! So very glad! We’re going to have so much fun together!”

* * *

In a secret, silenced place in the palace, two of the members of the Council met where they could not be overheard. The dim lighting cast long shadows across their features, the light of the moons creeping in through the single narrow window.  
  
Armand-Jean smoothed down his moustache. “What should we tell the court and the masses, Jean-Jacques?” he asked the other man.  
  
Wardes shrugged. “Tell them the truth,” he said, his voice melancholy. “That a vile force of evil has kidnapped the princess.”  
  
“It does occur to me,” the red-clad man said smugly, “that vile forces of evil must be fought. Perhaps we should look for heroes. And of course, we will have to increase the strength of the military, to fight off the marauding armies of wickedness which have shown that they can penetrate all the way to the inner sanctum of the palace.”  
  
“Perhaps,” Wardes said. “We can talk with Montespan soon.”  
  
“My, my,” the duc continued, “I do believe that taxes might have to be raised; after all, we need to fortify the defences of the capital. The palace has already been shown not to be safe. And nobles who try to avoid paying the perfectly reasonable dues for the defence of the land and who whine on and on about their 'rights', like the damnable Duke de la Vallière… why, they may well be in league with the forces of darkness itself.” He balled one fist, and slammed it into his other hand. “They’ve fallen into my hands – in the name of the Crown, of course,” he said. “This ‘Overlady of the North’ has given me that most wonderful of things; an _excuse_.”  
  
And outside, Cattleya de la Vallière clasped both hands over her mouth, trying not to yelp. Her sister's foes were just inside, almost within reach, and yet they were untouchable because she had not been invited in. But this, their plans, their monstrous plans? They had to be stopped. A shadow flickered across the rooftop, and she was gone.


	33. A Refreshingly Wicked Interlude

**A Refreshingly Wicked Interlude**  
  
Through the woods of Albion, the songs of the elves echoed through misty glades and sun-dappled canopies.   
  
“In western lands beneath the Sun  
in winter, flowers die,  
the trees all rot, the waters run,  
and wasted little rats chirp.  
  
“There it is cloudless night  
and shuddering beeches hold  
no starry host, the great fright,  
scared their lights away.  
  
“Here at my life's end I am lingering  
in deep darkness buried.  
Beyond towers strong and high;  
beyond all mortal sleep.  
  
“My pain! You don’t understand,  
the ache of a world forlorn.  
The elders in their greed and hate  
would choke every newborn.”  
  
The songs of a certain kind of elf, at least. Pale-faced, their eyes adorned with dark linings, the dark elves snuck through the verdant greenery with utmost haste, only periodically stopping to pet small animals and sing depressing songs about trees. They were dressed in midnight black, and thus stood out like sore thumbs in the midday green and brown forest. They were also frolicking, but in a sinister and malevolent way as befitted their status as clearly Evil elves.   
  
Indeed, no small number of them had engaged in wanton mass killing, and as a result their hair was braided with the severed sexual organs of plants.  
  
Raising a hand, the depraved, wanton and degenerate foe of all righteousness who led this most vile cabal of elvenkind called a halt to their procession. “Um, Emerald,” Lillysuffering Crim’sondoomblood – called ‘Lilly’ by her friends – asked. “Are w-we lost again?”  
  
Emerald Leafgreen, one of her oldest friends who nevertheless refused to change her name to something more evil – citing a willingness to make her mother die of shame – shrugged. “Look, we’re following what the crazy old woman in the cottage said. The spirits are telling me that we’re following the signs right. And I can taste the Evil in the air.”  
  
“I feel a great wickedness consuming the sun!” declared one of the male elves, whose name was so saturated with misplaced punctuation and ‘z’s that no one had ever quite worked out how it was meant to be pronounced. “Watch! Darkness descends upon the Earth forever! The triumph of Evil is nigh!”  
  
“Sure you do, Apostrophe,” Emerald said, shrugging. “Or possibly it’s just a cloud. Make sure you don’t slip on making sure the spirits don’t let anyone see us, either way.”  
  
“It is a cloud… of darkness!”  
  
“It d-does look like it’s going to rain,” Lilly said, shielding her eyes. And then she perked up. “Um. I th-think I can see the r-ruins the old woman mentioned,” she said. “That white thing just over there.”  
  
“Dragon. Oh killing / beast of warring / hunger and flame/ Who knows why / only ruins remain / of your castles in sky,” provided Prettimas, flicking his hair to applause from the other elves for his spontaneous poetry.  
  
So, with much skipping and occasional pauses to pet wild animals and teach them wicked ways by feeding them grass, the dark elves made their ways to the ancient ruins and the small human village built in amongst them. Unseen, they picked their way through the tiny village of surprisingly well constructed stone houses, shaped as if from wax from the ancient ruins, and the ramshackle structures around them.  
  
“It’s very… human,” said the elf known as Apostrophe, nose wrinkling. “Yes, it has a decidedly human smell about it.”  
  
“I th-think that might be the pigs,” Lilly said, pointing at the free-roaming, dopey-looking swine – one of them being ridden by a grubby child. There didn’t seem to be anyone above the age of… wait, how was it that humans aged again? Well, none of the humans seemed to be sexually mature.  
  
And they all looked so thin, even by the standards of human peasants. Certainly, none of them had the problems with their weight that the elven poor had, fattened on a diet of sweetened wafer-bread and excessive portions of nectar.  
  
Lilly began to feel sorry for them. It was a problem, she knew; she was too soft, too kind to be the real force of Evil she wanted to be. And Dark Gods knew, she wasn’t the right person to be leading their coven – or possibly cabal or murder; there was still some debate over that – but she was the one who had founded it. She was the one who seemed to have the motivation which led to them doing things. Left to themselves, the other dark elves would just sit around writing poetry, or in the case of Emerald stealing from the rich and forgetting to give any of it to the poor even though they were meant to be Evilly redistributing wealth.  
  
“Who are you!” demanded a blond girl in a green dress, pointing her finger at them. She seemed to be the eldest here, as far as the elves could tell, but her too-thin face seemed younger than her body. “What are you doing here and how did you get past the… how are you here?”  
  
“Apostrophe,” Emerald growled, turning on him. “You were meant to be hiding us.”  
  
“I don’t get it,” Apostrophe said plainly. “No human should be able to see us. I was, like, really specific about that. Not one human, I told the spirits – very politely, of course.”  
  
“Well, that human is seeing us,” Emerald drawled.   
  
“W-wait,” Lilly said, staring. “D-does that mean what I think it does?” She cleared her throat. “Um, ma’am,” she tried, “y-you’re not human, are you? You’re… like us.”  
  
The other girl was silent.  
  
“W-we’re friends,” Lilly tried. The girl looked somewhat dubious, staring at the pale-faced, spike-festooned elves, but seemed at least prepared to consider it. “We’ve… um, been looking for you.”  
  
“I’m Tiffania,” the blonde girl said, removing her hat to reveal pointed ears. Now they looked closer, they noticed that her eyes were inhumanly large, though on the smaller side for an elf, and her cheekbones were elvishly prominent. “You’ve been looking for me? Well… uh, I’ve never met another elf before, but… um, well… I don’t think you’ll try to burn me, so we can probably talk. We don’t have much here, but… do you want a drink of water?”

* * *

The blonde girl led the dark elves into the three storey tower which was at the centre of the village, past a mostly-empty storeroom and into a painfully clean kitchen, massaging her pointed ears. “I have to wear that outside – they just burn so easily, you know?” she said. “Mother always said that’s a problem.”  
  
“Oh, w-we know,” Lilly confirmed, taking a stool when offered. “That’s why w-we all wear wide brimmed hats back in the S-South, when we go outside. Especially when we ride or things like that.” She paused. “Y-your mother? C-can we talk to her?”  
  
“Really? I can’t ride,” Tiffania said. “And my mother… she’s dead.”   
  
“I’m s-sorry,” Lilly said, hesitantly. “Was it…”  
  
“They killed her when the King sent his men after my father and her,” Tiffania said in a flat voice. “She… she went to slow them down, so I could escape. But they were setting fires, so I hid, and… she killed so many of them, tore them to pieces, but there were always more and…” the girl shuddered, paler than usual. “My father was a duke, and they cut his head off.”  
  
There was silence.  
  
“She’s half-human? The omens didn’t say anything about them being _half-human_ ,” one of the female elves muttered. “What kind of chosen one is half-human?”  
  
“Oi!” Emerald said, turning, as Tiffania blushed and cringed. “Mort’alice-Agonylia! I know that was you! How dare you talk like that! We’ve been looking for her for… like, ages.”  
  
“Oh! Do,” the blonde girl looked almost hungrily from face to face, “do… were you sent by my sister? Do you know what’s happened to her?”  
  
“Your… sister?” Emerald asked.  
  
“Well,” Tiffania admitted, “she’s only distantly related to me, on my father’s side, but she’s like a sister to me and she used to help a lot, but then almost a year ago she vanished when on one of her trips! Please… does that mean you weren’t sent by her?”  
  
“Um. N-no,” Lilly said hesitantly. “We weren’t sent by your… um, sister.” This was not going as she had thought it would go. She was not sure entirely how she had thought it would go, but it had probably involved fewer grubby human peasants, and rather more luxurious surroundings.   
  
And the person they were looking for… she hadn’t been quite so earnest and serious, in a too-thin, vaguely worried way. She had looked rather more like the person who Lilly really wanted to be, all calm and suave and seductive. Not like a hungry, fretting half-breed girl even younger than she was. Humans were meant to be the most Evil of all the intelligent races – obviously not counting things like goblins, which weren’t really intelligent – but she didn’t look Evil despite her human blood. She mostly looked hungry.  
  
“Oh. Um. That’s a shame. This winter has been… very hard without her to help,” Tifa said, her gaze drifting away from the elves to stare out of the window. Her eyes settled on a bare little square, cleared of undergrowth, with several of those sword-shaped markers humans stuck into the ground on top of dead bodies. “There hasn’t been enough food, and the Republicans conscripted the healer in the nearby village who was friendly to us. And…” her lips wobbled, as she stared at the little patch and its small mounds, “… and the healing ring my mother passed down to me ran out of magic, so… so I couldn’t do enough. Because… because I can’t heal and...” she blotted her eyes on her sleeve, biting her lip. “Let’s talk about something else,” she said, with a false brightness in her voice.  
  
Lilly had been taught at school that it was a sign of the wickedness of humans, the way they symbolically stabbed their own dead – and also that humans were so wicked that they had to stab their own dead to stop them coming back as undead. Technically, now that she was a dark elf she should be all in favour of desecrating the dead, but these sword-markers were just rather… pathetic, in a way which made her want to cry. Branches had been tied together with twine, and some of them were adorned with flowers.  
  
She had a horrible feeling that everything was going to go wrong, but she ignored it. Lilly lived in that state, and only about half the time did everything actually turn to ashes in her hands. So she swallowed hard, and spoke. “W-we made a prophecy,” Lilly explained, fingers twining together on her lap.  
  
“Yep!” Emerald agreed, and for a moment Lilly wanted to gag her old friend. “It was lots and lots of fun, making the prophecy, because we got… like, _woah_ high and naked, like our Dark Goddess told us to, and then my hand turned into rainbows and unicorns and spiders and went wandering off. Or maybe it didn’t. Still, prophecies are fun!”  
  
“And… uh, when everyone w-woke up the n-next morning, we’d s-sort of f-fallen down a pit and found all these stone tablets,” Lilly explained, blushing.  
  
“Which was kinda a big problem, because we didn’t have our clothes. But still! Evil demands sacrifice of primitive things like modesty!”  
  
There was a small ‘eep’ from Lilly, which suggested she was quite a fan of modesty and had none-too-fond memories of the event. “Anyway, this is what the st-stones s-said,” Lilly cleared her throat. “ _The heir of Evil will be born to royal blood, of a line of great wickedness,_ ” she began, her voice going unexpectedly sinister and ceasing to stammer. The light dimmed, as if there was a cloud in front of the unveiled sun. The air grew humid and sticky, despite how early in spring it was, and it was somehow bitterly cold at the same time.  
  
“Always does this when we recite it,” Emerald said helpfully.   
  
“ _All who gaze upon them will see their great Evil, and they will be an heir to the darkest of magics. A prince denied his throne will fall prey to them. Wickedness will be their pawns and their weaponry, and ancient secrets will be whispered to them. Midday sleep will never arrive, and their servants will be feted in the eyes of the most low and wretched. Amidst a fallen world they will make their home, and there you will find them._ ” Lilly fell silent, reaching for the water and downing almost the whole cup.  
  
There was silence. Tiffania looked around, confused, as the weather returned to normal. “Um,” she asked. “What does this have to do with me?”  
  
The dark elves exchanged glances. It fell to Emerald to say, “As far as we have been able to tell, you are a direct heir – perhaps the last one – of the elven monarchy.”  
  
“I am?”   
  
“Your mother was Titania Rumenea, a member of a fallen house, cast down after a failed political play for control over the Senate, who fled to the human lands to avoid charges of treason.”  
  
“She was?”  
  
“And from what we have been able to tell, that was part of an ancient conspiracy to reclaim the throne, and that clan was actually made up of the secret descendants of the cast down royal family. Or at least, that’s what the thesis we stole from the archives said, so it has to be right.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Also, our Dark Goddess told us that we would find what we searched for here,” Apostrophe interjected. “And when we made the mistake of questioning her, she… sucked us into her dark realm and told us we could go when we crossed the Blasted Wastes of Hathanar in a fast enough time to please her,” he said in a hushed voice.  
  
“I didn’t even know elves had royal families,” Tiffania said, wide-eyed. “But I don’t really know anything about elves; Mama never talked about her people.”  
  
“Not any more. You see,” Apostrophe said, jutting out his weak chin, “long, long ago, us elves used to have kings and queens. Oh, they were very, very powerful, and all the textbooks at school said they were vile and horrible tyrants, who harshly imposed taxes on things like tea leaves from the East, gold and silver, and – older elves still curse them for this – they took a vast percentage of the income of each man and woman, just because they were in charge! And they stole the property of the clans and the houses, and there were dark rumours that they were planning to ban indenture, which all the textbooks agree; that was a terribly wrong deed, and could not stand. Now, as we’re the dark elves and we support wrong things, that means logically we’re all in favour of royalty!”  
  
“And our parents can totally suck it and be taxed at the same level the old kings and queens used to make them pay, not the pathetic level the Senate sets itself,” Emerald said firmly. “They make us pay for our own education, you know! And so if we have a Dark Queen, we’ll totally have the people rally behind us, and we can overthrow the old government and institute some proper social change! And redistribute income, yeah! It totally sucks that we’re poor and old people, like our parents, are rich!”  
  
“I’m confused,” Tiffania said in a tiny voice. The sunlight through the window left her looking wan and washed out. “I… I just look after the children here. Some of them are… came from my father’s estate, and fled here, and others… well, the Civil War left lots of orphans. They don’t have anywhere to go. Some of them… their parents were executed by the Republicans, too. I never even ever knew what my mother’s surname was, let alone all… this. I… I won’t have to leave them, will I? Because I won’t! They have no one!”  
  
“We w-wouldn’t ask you to,” Lilly said in a croak, her throat still hurting from prophecy. She looked around the painfully bare kitchen. She took in the girl, too-thin despite her moderate bust which made her look older than she was, who was the one they had put so much hope in. “In f-fact,” she said, “we c-can help too.”  
  
“We can?” Apostrophe asked, wrinkling his nose.  
  
“We can,” Lilly said, crossing her arms. “We… um, we need a secret base on Albion too, and this is in a really pretty forest, and… and we aren’t our parents! They say greed is g-good, so charity is b-bad and so we should be doing it!”  
  
There was an awkward silence. It was broken by Tiffania.  
  
“Thank you so much,” she said, the gratitude obvious in her voice. “You… you don’t know how bad the winter was. I had to do some… not nice things to allow those of us to make it to… to make it. Anything would be better than going that hungry ever again. And… and thank you, thank you. Please, call me Tifa.”   
  
“Y-you don’t have…” Lilly took a breath, “any issue with becoming the Dark Queen who’ll lead us to overthrow the ways of m-men and elves?”  
  
“If it means we don’t go hungry anymore… no,” the girl said flatly. “Anything which means we can avoid that ever again can’t _possibly_ be bad, and… and I don’t know if we can last until harvest without… we can’t last until harvest. I’ve already had to use my magic for things I’m not too proud of, because the peasants around here don’t have much to spare, but we had less and… and without my big sister, there wasn’t any money. Well. I suppose I should introduce you to the children, while you can tell me all about what you do and what you want me to do. And maybe some of your friends with the bows could go hunting and bring back some food.”  
  
“Oooh, hunting,” Emerald said with a grin. “I can do that! I saw some deer on the way here, and… mmm, venison steaks.”  
  
“That would be lovely,” Tifa breathed.  
  
Lilly was a vegetarian.

* * *

Explanations were being given to a group of small, somewhat grubby human children. And the worst thing was that the children were listening. And judging.  
  
“… and so, uh, we want them to stop cutting down trees, so d-during the night, we sn-sneak into the place where they k-keep the tools, and steal them. And sometimes we set fire to the tool sheds, so they can’t progress, but we… uh, don’t do that very often, because it makes lots of b-bad smoke. Um. And once we. Um. Planted a bomb, and then sent a warning, and sh-shut down the place for three whole days while they. Um. Disarmed it.”  
  
Lilly peeked at Tifa. She was looking somewhat dubious at the description of how they were thwarting the plans of Prettyrose Logging.  
  
“I make posters and we put them up in border towns!” Apostrophe said proudly. “The people’ll rise up and overthrow the plutocrats in an orgy of bloodshed and murder if only they know the truth!”  
  
“I redistribute wealth, stealing from the rich and powerful, and then we give it to poor people. Because, right, charity makes poor people slothful and lazy and greedy, so we’re causing vice by doing it!” Emerald said, nodding her head. “Also, I deduct our operational expenses from it, so I’m also stealing from poor people, which is like, double evil.”  
  
An eight-year old boy with skinned knees raised one hand. “Yeah,” he said, “I got a question.”  
  
Lilly gulped. That sounded like an awfully confrontational tone of voice. “G-go ahead, small human child,” she said, trying to smile at him.  
  
“Well… right, you know how you said you went around blowin’ up mines an’ places they cut down trees and stuff like that, right? With your magic? Well, what I don’t get is… why do you go and send warnings before you do it?”  
  
Tifa nodded gravely. “I did find that a bit strange,” she admitted, “but I didn’t want to say anything. Surely you had a reason.”  
  
“W-well, yes, we…”  
  
“What I’d do, right,” the little boy said, crossing his arms, “is I’d not tell anyone, and would wait until lots and lots of people’ll are in there, and then it’d be all like,” he threw his arms wide, “kaboom! And there’d be lots and lots of bodies everywhere and blood and legs and stuff and you could be all laughing at it, and tell them you’d keep on doing it until they stopped cutting down trees!”  
  
“That’d be so cool!” an older girl who looked to be his sister said. “Blood everywhere! And then you could do what the evil mages do in stories and make… like, blood golem-things to hide among the bodies and then when people went to bury the bodies, they’d be all ‘om nom nom’ and they’d be so scared they might _die_.”  
  
“And get giant eagles to fly over cities and drop poo and wee wee into water so everyone gets sick and dies! Because Big Sister Tifa told us all about high-jeans, and so you can make them be low-jeans and get sick and poo everywhere!” chirped in a mucky-looking boy with red hair and sunburn.  
  
“You know what I think?” a piping voice said, rich in malevolent intent, but poor in years. The five year old girl hugged her grubby doll close, staring up at the cluster of somewhat shocked elves. “I think you should all go and find one of the leader people who you don’t like, and offer to do things for them which are naughty, and then when you’ve done the naughty things, you offer to do it again, and then when you’ve done a few naughty things for him, you should go tell him, ‘Oh, hello Mister Leader Person, remember us? We did lots of things which were naughty for you, because you told us to. Which means it’s your fault. And if you don’t want everyone to find out that you’re naughty, you’ll do things for us!’ That would work much better because it’s stuff that the leader person has to listen to if he doesn’t want to have bad things happen to him, so he can’t just say ‘Oh I am all important, we can just build new stuff, who cares that it was destroyed?’.”  
  
The little girl paused, face screwed up in an expression of intense concentration. “Also,” she added, “you can go ‘we have your favourite doll and if you don’t do what we say we’ll send you back her hair, piece by piece’, and no one wants a bald doll. And then when you’ve cut off the hair, then you start on her arms and legs and eyes so that way they know you’re really, really super-serious! And I’m sure they’d listen to you if you used their children rather than their dolls!”  
  
“Children, children, please,” Tifa said, looking shocked. “You shouldn’t be talking like that!”  
  
“Th-thank you,” Lilly whispered, feeling sick.  
  
“Don’t you have better manners? You should be waiting your turn to tell our visitors what you think!” Tifa cleared her throat. “And Magda, I think that was a very well-thought out idea, even though I have asked you to stop taking Hannah’s dolls. Is that one of hers you have right now?”  
  
The little girl shook her head. “No!”  
  
“Are you lying, Magda?”  
  
“No, I’m not! Marie-Anne is mine! We did a…” she screwed up her face, concentrating, “ne-goat-tee-eight-ted host-age exchange!”  
  
“Um,” said Lilly.  
  
Tifa smiled broadly and ruffled the girl’s hair. “That’s a good girl. See how much better everything goes when we talk to each other and each person does something the other person wants! It means no one gets upset because they find their dollie’s head cut off and left in their bed! Which was very naughty of you!”  
  
“Uh,” said Lilly.  
  
The half-elf put her hands on her hips. “See!” she said, happily. “Even the children can help with the ideas!” A harsher expression crept onto her face; it didn’t look like it was quite at home there, but with time it thought it might be able to settle in. “You’re right, you know; I thought it was just us who suffered because of bad luck, but from what you say, _everything_ is unfair. Well, we’ll make that change. We’ll make everything change. And there are lots and lots of people on Albion who quite honestly deserve _everything_ that is coming to them. I hope we can get along and I can be the Dark Queen of Elvenkind you want me to be!”  
  
Lillysuffering Crim’somdoomblood – who was feeling rather more like Lilly-Rose Prettyblossom-Bush at this current moment – looked around at her friends. With a sick expression, she saw the lack of sinking horror on their faces.


	34. A Date With Destiny 7-1

_“Well, there I was, hefting the old Von Zerbst broadsword in both hands – rrrawwrrr – when all of a sudden, an evil witch came out of nowhere. Now, I know what you’re thinking, ‘Blitzhart, you dashingly handsome devil-slayer, what’s wrong with a nice bit of witchy totty throwing herself at you begging for redemption?’, and you’re right, there is nothing wrong with that! But this wasn’t that! This was one ugly old witch and she was going for my eyes! Well, Danny was having none of that, good lad, and cut her head off with a good ol’ burning razor wind spell! Who else could have so many fine boys? No one but Blitzhart von Zerbst!”_  
  
–  Markgraf Blitzhart von Zerbst

* * *

Louise de la Vallière stirred from the depths of sleep. She woke from a terrible nightmare that she had just found that she was pregnant – and Wardes was the father! – to the crushing weight of her day to day life as a secretly-not-evil overlady. Even before she opened her eyes, she could feel it waiting for her, a pressure on her which would never relent and never give up.  
  
Oh, wait. No. The great crushing weight on her damp chest was in fact Princess Henrietta’s head.  
  
After a moment’s thought, Louise quickly checked that the head was still attached to Princess Henrietta’s body.  
  
It was.  
  
That was a relief.  
  
Now, why was the crown princess using her as a pillow? While Louise understood that, metaphorically, the righteous and proper place for the royal family was directly above their loyal servants, like the de la Vallières, in practice Henrietta hadn’t used her in a pillow in years. And the two of them had been rather closer in size at that point.  
  
And why had she been crying into her?  
  
Carefully, awkwardly, Louise tried to squirm out from under the heavy weight. Henrietta shifted to keep the weight on her, and clung on tighter. Louise tried a little more vigorously. Henrietta’s grip merely tightened. It was almost uncomfortably tight until she stopped moving and accepted her role with equanimity.  
  
Maybe if she tried to slowly ease her way ou- no. No, that didn’t work. Henrietta was apparently quite cunning when asleep, as well as being considerably stronger than her. So she couldn’t get out, short of spontaneously developing a spell to turn into mist, or teleport.  
  
Louise lay back and tried to remember how they got into this state of affairs. There had certainly been some wine involved. Not too much, though. Tolerable amounts. The amount that a pair of decent young ladies might drink, suitably watered down. Well, a little bit more than that, but not _too_ much more. Really.  
  
Poor Henrietta. Yes, that was it. As they had got deeper in their cups, she had started crying about that Albionese prince and about how her mother had been so callous and about how she had been so lonely for months and months and months. She had asked – no, begged – Louise to stay with her, because she didn’t want to be alone. There had been a bit where she had started asking Louise what would happen if she was dreaming right now and when she would wake up, but Louise had been a little bit tipsy by that point so she wasn’t exactly sure what the point to that question had been.  
  
“… oh my… prince,” Henrietta mumbled. “What are you… mmm…”  
  
Louise froze. Given she had not previously been moving, that did not require much effort. The princess was shifting slightly. She might have a chance to get out of here.  
  
“… you’re… oh, naughty.” Henrietta giggled.  
  
Louise blushed bright red. She really didn’t want to be here. With a strength born of mortification, she managed to squirm free from Henrietta’s grasp and roll out of bed. Picking herself off the floor, she noticed that she was still dressed in the oil-and-rust-stained padding for her armour, and smelt none too fragrant because of it. She needed a bath. Which would happen away from here. And she could let Henrietta wake up. And then _never_ mention any of what the crown princess had said in her sleep.  
  
Henrietta let out a small, breathy exhalation which somehow managed to redouble the blush on Louise’s cheeks.  
  
Gathering her armour from where it had been discarded, the Overlady stalked off in what was definitely not a hasty retreat from her nominal prisoner.

* * *

Washed, dressed, and feeling a little more human, Louise returned to Henrietta’s room to find a tousled-looking princess washing her face in a basin held up by a filthy dress-wearing minion.  
  
She was almost vaguely certain she hadn’t told Fettid to do that, despite the blur that was the previous night.  
  
“Uh,” she said.  
  
“Oh, Louise Françoise!” Henrietta said happily. “Thank you for assigning one of your goblins to serve me.”  
  
“Uh,” said Louise.  
  
“I’m so glad you thought of that last night! I know we were both a teeny bit naughty and had a little too much to drink, but I suppose I must have just been a trifle susceptible.” Henrietta giggled. “Or all your coarse living and general wickedness has hardened your liver against the blandishments of wine!”  
  
“Uh,” Louise tried. Gosh. She _must_ have had a lot to drink to do something like that. “They’re called minions, not goblins,” she tried.  
  
“That is nice to know,” Henrietta said. “They’re certainly a lot most civil than the last set of kidnappers I had! None of them have made any vile comments which the fourteen-year-old me had to look up when she got home because she didn’t know what they meant!”  
  
“It are because I ask Maxy for a vice on how to talk to fancy ladies,” Fettid said shyly. “Maxy, he are famed par a moor.”  
  
Louise’s mouth flopped open. Did she mean ‘paramour’? Was one of her goblins a famed… no! No! She was not going to think about that! Not one bit! It… it was probably minion logic where they thought that a paramour was someone who took ladies’ dresses off and stole the dress and everything in the pockets. Yes, that made a lot more sense and thus she did not need to find something to be sick in.  
  
“How are you feeling?” she asked.  
  
Henrietta shrugged. “A little under the weather,” she admitted, “but, oh! Louise Françoise, trust me when I say that freedom as your captive more than makes up for the side effects of consuming a trifle too much wine last night!”  
  
“That’s nice,” Louise said. She smoothed down the front of her dress, nibbling on her lips to redden them slightly. “In that case, let’s go take advantage of Jessica while she’s still hung over.”  
  
Henrietta blinked, eyes widening. “Excuse me?”  
  
Louise blanched. “Um… uh, by that, I mean, take advantage of the fact that she’s still hung over and thus won’t ask questions about the dress designs you want and,” she coughed, “yes! You see, she’s a little bit evil and if you aren’t careful she’ll probably try to make you wear something scandalously low cut and black and… and there’ll probably be a spikey collar or something like that and… and her dress will probably expose your underthings or _worse_ expose that you’re not wearing any at all because she’s sort of the daughter of an incubus and thus she has some strange tastes in clothing and…”  
  
“Louise Françoise, Louise Françoise,” Henrietta said, sounding quite concerned, “please, please, remember to breathe! You are turning quite red!”  
  
“I’m just trying to warn you!” Louise blurted out. “I _like_ Jessica, but I don’t _trust_ her taste in clothing! Not one bit! Do you know how hard I had to push to get her to make me armour which covered my vital organs? And to get her to,” she waved her hand up and down herself, “make dresses which are merely evil-looking, rather than… than trashy! I don’t want to wear a dress with a neckline which reaches down to the navel! Who on earth thinks that kind of thing is practical? Well, apparently most evil women! Or,” she added darkly, “evil men like it and then they tell people to make it for their consorts and it becomes fashionable. Oh yes! I bet that’s what it is! Why, I think-”  
  
“That really is gorgeous, though,” Henrietta said admiringly. She reached out and stroked the sleeve. “What is that black fabric? It feels like silk. And those embroideries are incredibly intricate, albeit somewhat sinister. Gosh. I really do wish the court tailors were so good.”  
  
Louise blinked. “Um… uh, yes, yes, it’s… uh, spidersilk, actually. From… um, an abyssal spider. Apparently it’s tough enough to stop most knives and,” Louise trailed off. She had to get better control of herself! What on earth was she doing, babbling like this? She pulled herself together. “Right! Follow me. Let’s go and get you a new wardrobe! I’ll go ahead, talk to her, get her in the right frame of mind, and then you can introduce yourself. Um, your highness.”  
  
“Lead on, my wicked captor,” Henrietta said with a giggle.  
  
Louise’s luck was in. Jessica was in the kitchen, head slumped in her hands. Her face was an unhealthy shade greyer than usual, and she was making vaguely pitiful sounds as she stared down at a large sheet of paper covered in burning runes. Louise frowned. Jessica was, of course, wearing her disgracefully exposed nightwear, made worse because she had tucked her buttonless shirt into her underthings and thus they were exposed for all and sundry to see. She was also red-eyed and slit-pupil’d, but Louise couldn’t really say much about evil-looking eyes. Not until she had refreshed the enchantment which covered up her own, at least.  
  
“My head,” groaned Jessica, clutching at aforementioned body part. “I’m sure your minions are doing something funny to the drink. I never get drunk normally, you know. Or hungover.”  
  
“That’s nice,” Louise said, “and while you’re in such a productive state of mind, we have to get started right away on what Henrietta will wear while she’s my captive!”  
  
Jessica staggered over to her metal-encased fridge, recovering a white glass bottle of milk. Gulping some down, she turned to stare blearily at Louise. “Maybe… tomorrow. Or this afternoon,” she said pathetically.  
  
“But think of the awards! The prestige! The ability to use a princess as a modelling dummy!” Louise said. She glanced around, to where Henrietta was giving her a thumbs up through the door.  
  
“I’ve used a… prin’ess as a dummy before,” Jessica groaned. “It makes it real hard to… check the back. Because it’s your own... ow. Ow. My head. Stop being so loud.”  
  
“Now, now,” Louise said, pitilessly, maliciously and loudly. “This isn’t like you. You’re normally much more determined to make your name in fashion than this. And it would be,” she gasped, “a most dreadful affront if I was forced to tell Princess Henrietta that she will be forced to go around in old tired unfashionable clothing just because you were too hungover and self-centred to be able to work on your life’s ambition.”  
  
Jessica glared at Louise as she filled a bowl with some kind of wheat product from a brightly coloured box covered in demonic runes. “You’re a monster,” she muttered. “A small, petite, well-bred, delicate-looking _soulless fiend_ of evil wickedness and pain and suffering and sobriety and _evil wicked suffering pain._ ”  
  
“That’s not very nice,” Louise said cheerfully, who was enjoying this perhaps more than she should have been. “That means you’ll do it?”  
  
“Fine! I’ll get the measurements and… and stuff and talking and stuff done this morning.” She stared blearily around the room. “So where is the princess we’ve been working so hard towards kidnapping?” she added, returning to her seat, and pouring the milk over her bowl of wheat byproducts. A whirl of demonic magic, and a spoon formed from the shadows of her sleeve. “Le’s mphete hurr,” she said with a full mouth.  
  
Louise cleared her throat. “May I present Princess Henrietta de Tristain, rightful heir to the throne, and my current prisoner,” she said, sinking into a curtsey.  
  
“Hello,” Henrietta said stepping into the room, essaying a small wave. “I’ve been kidnapped by my good friend, Louise Françoise.”  
  
“Hi,” Jessica said. “I helped do the kidnapping. And also sorta kinda blew up your treasury, but don’t worry, we took everything valuable out first.”  
  
“Oh, that’s jolly good,” Henrietta said. “I hated that place. And my mother deserves the repair bill. So you’re the one who made Louise’s beautiful dress?”  
  
Jessica grinned. “Yep!” she said. “Hey, Lou, you didn’t say she appreciates good design!”  
  
“You should curtsey,” Louise hissed at her.  
  
Jessica stared blearily back.  
  
“You know? What girls do when meeting important people?”  
  
“No, I really shouldn’t,” Jessica said. She rubbed her eyes. “It would be a breach of… thingie. Protocol. I’m not meant to curtsy to anyone less than full reigning royalty, and only then from. You know. Ones which are all proper and stuff. Not royalty from wimpy little nations which don’t count as real kingy regnanty thingies.”  
  
“Excuse me?” Henrietta asked.  
  
Jessica yawned and stretched. “Princess J’eszika Moraudat D’aemonstrelle Obfuscata Xystene Elee’ze Imoegene Malevola Ebony Invidia Pyrene va S'kareryeon , Princess of the Blood-in-Exile of the Abyss, Vicomtesse of the Descending Spheres, Heir Apparent to the Rising Tower is most _terribly_ pleased to make your acquaintance,” she said, her mode of address leaping up by several social classes. She offered her hand in an exaggeratedly limp-wristed manner, and it was taken by Henrietta. “So nice to see you, cousin.”  
  
“Cousin?” Louise said weakly.  
  
“Oh, it’s just a formality, from one royal to another,” Henrietta said, taking a seat at the table. “She’s not actually my cousin.”  
  
“That’s a relief,” Louise said.  
  
“Yes, the infernal blood in my family is _considerably_ more distant than that,” Henrietta continued. “I do believe… yes, by why I can remember of the genealogy, it was one of my great-great great grandmothers on my father’s side who was a consort of the King of the Abyss. Or was it great-great? Focus, Henrietta, focus! It was Isabella the Beautiful, also known as Isabella the Turnskin, who was the daughter of Charles the Vile, anyway.”  
  
Louise flickered through confusion into shock, before finally settling on breathed relief. It was known that the royal family was rather… heterogeneous in its ancestry, after all. And at least from what they said, _she_ didn’t have the same demonic ancestry. Charles the Vile had been the father of Louis de la Vallière, so if that was where the slightest taint in the royal family might have come from, she didn’t have infernal ancestry. She pursed her lips, and mentally corrected that to ‘from that specific branch of the family’. Her honesty forced her to admit that her relatives had probably engaged in carnal relations with demons at some point, and so she had to hope that they had taken the appropriate care.  
  
“Oh, I think I recall Father… um, saying something about… ow, that,” Jessica said, taking another sip from the bottle of milk. “He was the Great Beast at the time, yeah? Wasn’t it that… like, the king sold his daughter to the King of the Abyss for some kind of magic flower which was supposed to give immortality or crap like that? Well, either way, they did the nasty and she started worshipping him too.”  
  
Henrietta nodded. “Of course, then the King of the Abyss was banished by a noble duke, the mightiest warrior in the land. Why, no man could shoot like that hero, nor could they fight like him. Who could defeat a man like that?” She frowned. “Of course, Isabella the Turnskin tried to hide that she was an apostate who worshipped her banished consort after she married the duke, but she sort of gave away that there was something there that wasn’t there before when a magically animated candlestick stabbed one of her rivals to death. Or maybe it was when she turned into a demon-witch and tried to steal the moon. Well, either way, her daughter banished her mother from the world.” She tilted her head. “So, what, that makes us… second cousins thrice removed and half-purified?”  
  
Jessica shrugged. “Dunno. I never got the grip of cousin stuff.”  
  
“Oh, me neither! It always seems so complicated and unnecessary! And then my tutors were complaining so much about me not putting the effort into learning it and blah blah blah.”  
  
Jessica nodded. “Yeah. So, um. If you want cereal, feel free,” she said, waving vaguely in the direction of the looming bulk of the iron fridge.  
  
“Serial what?” Henrietta asked quizzically.  
  
“Anyway!” Louise said loudly. She glanced down at the burning-rune covered papers before Jessica. “So, what do the journals say about what happened yesterday?” she asked. “That is today’s one, yes?”  
  
“Yes, it’s hot off the presses,” Jessica said. “Uh… we’re not the main story. That’s the report on some speech my aunt gave…”  
  
Louise pouted. How dare the queen of the succubae steal her rightful place as the most important thing which happened yesterday!  
  
“… and incidentally, I told you that you needed to be higher profile with your escape,” Jessica said. “If there aren’t pictures of you escaping on a windship or something like that, you can’t beat my aunt’s cleavage for catching the attention of the imp on the street.”  
  
“Well, not yet, but maybe with some spells… maybe something flesh rotting or…” Louise blinked. “Sorry, I was thinking out loud,” she said. “Please, continue.”  
  
“I don’t follow,” Henrietta said.  
  
“So, yeah,” Jessica continued. “But we do have a smaller section on the front page, and it’s continued on page four. Which,” she flicked through, “oh, that looks like a rather nice picture of the palace on fire. Urgh! Why didn’t that make lead? Everyone’s seen my aunt’s boobs before. It’s not like she hides them or anything. I bet it was them pushing the story down because… well, this is the Los Diablos Times and Eloudiegh is the editor, so see! This is another example of the way that my aunt and her spawn seek to further their totally unfair total domination of stuff, and suppress any attempts by a hard-working newcomer to break into the fashion industry!”  
  
She coughed. “So, uh. It’s basically noted as breaking news, and there’s some information, but not much. It does have the headline ‘Iron Maiden traps Tristainian Princess’ which is pretty funny, and, uh, we’ll just skip over that speculation on motives and oh! Look, it does mention you were shortlisted for Best Newcomer at the Cabal Awards!”  
  
“What was that bit about motives?” Louise said suspiciously.  
  
“Just something scurrilous printed to probably try to discredit you since Eloudiegh is the editor and she’s a total bitch,” Jessica said, rising to trap Louise in a one-armed hug. “Still! I’m pretty pleased with this! We got pages four and five, and there’s even a sketch of you in armour attacking that underpalace in the Abyss a bit ago! So the armour got shown!”  
  
“Hurrah!” Henrietta contributed. “I’m glad to be helping.”  
  
“Um… isn’t she a bit happy to be kidnapped?” Jessica whispered. “Like, I’m pretty sure this isn’t how it’s meant to go. Not that I have experience with princess kidnapping.”  
  
“We’re old friends,” Louise whispered back, “and she was being held captive by her mother and the Council. I’ve promised she’ll be treated properly as long as she cooperates, so she’s glad to actually be allowed out of a single room and have people to talk to.”  
  
“What a cunningly Evil plan,” Jessica said approvingly. “The best jail is one someone doesn’t want to escape from.”  
  
“What are you whispering about?” Henrietta asked curiously.  
  
“Ah, your evilness!” Gnarl said cheerfully, wandering through holding a bowl of cockroaches which he was noisily eating. Henrietta’s face screwed up in disgust at the sight, and Louise was confused why for a moment, before she remembered that unusually verbose goblins eating cockroaches wasn’t a normal sight. “I am glad to see that you are up and about. It is a lovely spring morning and the birds are singing. You need to wipe them out!”  
  
“Morning, Gnarl,” Louise said. “Your highness, this is my…” she searched for a word, “chief advisor, Gnarl.”  
  
Gnarl’s chest puffed out slightly. “Indeed, and may I compliment you on your beauty, your highness,” he said, inclining his head. “I advised one of your… oh, I lose track of the generations, but I believe she would have been a half-sister of one of your great-great grandfathers or so. You look rather like her. Only time will tell if you have the same fascination with augury and disembowelment.”  
  
Henrietta blinked. Louise suspected it was somewhat from the comparison, but mostly from the novelty of a goblin who used long words.  
  
Gnarl turned back towards Louise. “Your sinfulness, you will be needed in the Great Hall at your earliest convenience. The most exquisitely Evil of activities awaits your gleeful participation.”  
  
Louise’s head slumped down in despair when she realised what awaited her. “Oh no,” she whispered.  
  
“Louise Françoise, whatever is the matter?” Henrietta asked, eyes widening. “What does this Gnarl wish for you to do? Unholy rituals? Human sacrifice? Unspeakable deeds to captured prisoners? Foul and depraved acts?”  
  
“Worse,” Louise said weakly. “Paperwork.”  
  
“Indeed!” Gnarl said happily. “We have a great deal of accountancy to get through with regards to the classification and evaluation of the proceeds of your latest raid! Why, I am quite beside myself with glee at the prospect of adding up the total in your treasury! And let us not forget the value in the knowledge you have acquired! I do believe you now may have enough that I will need to quiz you to see if you are ready to begin investing in infernal industries!”  
  
“Jessica, see to Henrietta’s clothes, and… just get to know her,” Louise ordered, flapping a hand distractedly at them. “If you don’t want to do that, you can come with me and help me with the bureaucracy.”  
  
Jessica swallowed. “I’ll behave myself,” she said, nodding quickly.

* * *

The Great Hall was alive with the sound of precious things being handled, often poorly, by minions. Orders were being yelled and in general they were not making the situation worse. To the noise of this hubbub, Louise was working on the stacks of papers which Gnarl was sending her, while he oversaw the counting operations.  
  
Leaning back in her chair, Louise worked her hand which was cramping up. Looking at the clock beside her, she was surprised that two hours had already passed.  
  
The worst thing about being an overlady, Louise felt, when all things were taken into account was probably the amount of work which went into it. Her underlings seemed to have it much easier. The minions were – with the exception of Gnarl – morons to a goblinoid, though a few of them seemed to be upgrading to idiot. Cattleya – well, Louise loved her sister dearly, but for all her many virtues it did have to be said that Catt wasn’t the brightest member of the family, and was sort of, in the best possible way, a blood-crazed psychopath barely kept in check by a thin veneer of manners and standards of behaviour. And Jessica spent her time down in the forge or working on cloth which, yes, fair enough, was probably hard work, but it was merely physically demanding.  
  
None of them, apart from maybe Jessica, had to face up to the horrors of double-ledger accounting.  
  
Louise tried to look on the bright side. At least when she was back home, she would have picked up many valuable life skills, like estate management, accountancy, and of course military strategy. All of them were sought-after wifely skills. Surely any man would want his bride to be versed in such skills. Rather than, say, being an overly busty cow called Kirche von Zerbst, to give but one example.  
  
Idly, Louise wondered how her one-time rival and arch nemesis was doing. No doubt she didn’t have to do this much paperwork. She could probably just smile at a man and he’d do it for her. That almost sounded tempting, but Louise stood strong. There was such a thing as standards, after all. And more prosaically, the only human male she really knew even a little bit right now was Emperor Lee of Cathay, and she a) had only danced with him at a party, which had been almost the sum total of their interactions and b) wasn’t stupid enough to trust him with details on her accounts.  
  
Gnarl shuffled up. “Things are going satisfactorily, your wickedness,” he told her. “You have made quite a handsome profit from this previous operation. The little dears were most industrious in their looting.”  
  
“Very well, Gnarl,” Louise said.  
  
He did not leave.  
  
“Your malevolentness,” Gnarl said, “I do believe that as per the inventory of the treasury I found, there should have been a certain ruby contained within the vault. Might you have found it? Or was it missing? This is something of a fair degree of importance.”  
  
Louise pursed her lips. Should she show it to him? Would he just go and look at her hand anyway at some point if she didn’t tell him?  
  
Uh. Yeah. Obviously. He broke into her room at night and read her stories. Of course he’d contrive an excuse to look at the Gauntlet. She held out her hand. “I found it in the treasury, but when I touched it, it fused to the metal,” she said. “It won’t come out.”  
  
“Ah, yes, I haven’t seen that in a long, long time,” Gnarl said, stroking his goatee. “That is one of the four great gems the Gauntlet was forged with. Water, earth, fire, air.” He sat down on his high chair. “Long ago, you see, the free races lived in harmony. Then everything changed when the first overlord attacked. Only a band of the mightiest heroes could stop him, and… well, they did. But Evil always finds a way!”  
  
Louise was, by upbringing, rather inclined to support brave coalitions of heroes opposing a domineering overwhelming Evil. This left her in a somewhat awkward position when she found herself in the theoretically overwhelming Evil’s role. But, she reassured herself, she wasn’t _actually_ evil, and since she actually controlled these two potent evil artefacts, they couldn’t end up in the hands of someone who was really actually really bad.  
  
“This, specifically, is linked to water,” Gnarl said, looking closer at the gem on the gauntlet. “It was always said that one was in Tristain. The last I heard, air was in Albion, fire in Romalia and earth in Gallia, but that was nearly a century ago and much will have changed.” The old goblin smiled. “After all, do you think it is just coincidence you found this stone? It made its way to you, your evilness. The others may as well. They can hear you calling. You wear the Gauntlet, and it longs to be whole. Something like this will shake the very foundations of the world.”  
  
“Um,” Louise said.  
  
“Usurpation in Tristain. Regicide and treason in Albion. A mad king in Gallia. And… well, there’s probably something or other going on in Romalia,” Gnarl said. “Think about it, your evilness. Fell deeds are afoot, or rather, ahand.”  
  
Louise swallowed hard. That wasn’t… her fault, was it? No! No, that was ridiculous. The Albionese Civil War was a decade in the making, and open fighting had been going on for at least two years. Gnarl was just being a stupid evil old goblin.  
  
“Now, the question is,” Gnarl said, grinning, “where on earth the Helmet, the Shroud and the Armour got to. None of them were in the tower, your wickedness. If the Gauntlet detects where the rest of it is… I would advise that you listen to it. Advise most strongly.”  
  
“I… I understand,” Louise said. “Thank you Gnarl.”  
  
“Very wicked, your evilness,” he said, slipping off his chair. “I will go back and make sure the little darlings don’t try to set the gold on fire. We will delay than until we wish to smelt coins with your face on.”  
  
“I think that can wait,” Louise said hastily. “Thank you again, Gnarl. I have paperwork to do.”  
  
She watched him go. Louise sighed, and rested her forehead on her folded arms on the table. Urgh. She didn’t want to be some chosen one of evil. She just wanted to get her self-appointed mission done, and go home. And she also didn’t want to do any more paperwork today. None of the evil wicked tyrants in the stories had to do this the day after kidnapping a princess. This was quite dreadful.  
  
Her stomach grumbled, just as more paperwork in Gnarl’s neat hand cascaded onto her desk.  
  
She hoped Henrietta would be done with Jessica soon. She needed someone to talk to. Complain at, really.

* * *

“… and so I told him, ‘You’re the cultist, not me. You’re the one who should be down on his hands and knees!’,” Jessica said, chuckling as she sketched something out. The flames in Jessica’s plush and very red room danced as she laughed, the shadows twirling on the wall. Brazen demonic masks leered down from the walls.  
  
The general decadence of the room was somewhat ruined by the half-done sketches pinned up everywhere, and the clearly work-in-progress loom sitting in the corner. The pile of clothes in the corner also did not serve the malevolent aesthetic.  
  
Henrietta’s eyes momentarily widened, and then she broke out laughing too. “My goodness,” she said, when her breathing was under control, “that’s something indeed. You know, the only people who aren’t my mother who’ve talked to me for almost a year have been the maids, and you wouldn’t believe some of the tales I got from them. But it seems that men have that much in common everywhere.”  
  
“Yeah, you said it,” Jessica said.  
  
“Even though your demons and cultists don’t seem to do quite so many things with roosters,” Henrietta said, still giggling.  
  
“Wait, what?” Jessica went momentarily cross-eyed, opened her mouth, and closed it again. “I don’t… I… what?”  
  
She blinked, deciding to avoid the topic, and changed the subject. “Okay!” she declared. “Right! So, I have an initial first draft for the dress. This is just concept work, you understand, and this will probably change once I get your measurements and we get to hash out a design in practice. Oh, do you want some wine?” she added, pouring herself some from a bottle under her desk.  
  
“Thank you very much,” Henrietta said, rising and coming over to examine the sketches. “Hmm. I don’t think I could really run in that,” she said critically, pursing her lips as she traced out the green and silver chalk sketch before her.  
  
“You’re not meant to be able to run,” Jessica said. “You are sort of our captive.”  
  
“Yes, but there’s a difference between the customary and conventional constraints which I, as your prisoner, should have, and simple bloody-minded inconvenience, pardon my Romalian.” Henrietta took a sip of wine, and squared her jaw. “I have spent the last _year_ in uncomfortable and unstylish dresses intended to help correct my posture. I haven’t even got to wear a simple shift! I am jolly well not going to put up with not being able to move my legs properly!”  
  
“Hmm. Well, I can take it up to the knee and…”  
  
Henrietta shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I like the length, and it’ll cover up my calves. They’re just too… too blasted muscular.” She sat back, tapping her fingers together. “What if you had slits up the side, to allow me to move. Up past the knee. Maybe more like… hmm, yes. To the mid-thigh.”  
  
Jessica blinked. “You’d wear that?” she asked.  
  
“I am the one asking for it,” Henrietta asked primly.  
  
“Lou kicks up a fuss whenever I do things like that.”  
  
“Louise Françoise,” Henrietta said, “is a rather conservative girl who dresses like her mother. I would rather die than dress like mine.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Really. I will wear literally _anything_ you want if it would shock my mother.”  
  
Jessica grinned broadly. “This,” she declared, “looks like it could be the start of a wonderful friendship. Henri, you are wonderful!”  
  
“Please call me ‘Henrietta’.” The princess coughed. “In addition, I have a number of other small criticisms about it, and the general styles involved. Shall we start with the rather high neckline? Should I assume that is a design Louise Françoise favours?”  
  
“Yes, she…”  
  
“Lower it.”

* * *

Louise’s gauntlet chimed. She glanced down at it, glad for the distraction.  
  
“What is it, Catt?” she asked, putting down her pen and massaging her aching hand.  
  
“ _Nothing much, nothing much,_ ” her older sister said. “ _This thing and the next and incidentally I’m going to be a teeny-weeny ittle-bittle later than expected._ ”  
  
Louise paused, and stared straight ahead of her. She wouldn’t sigh. She promised herself that she wouldn’t let any of the emotions she was currently experiencing show when she asked the next question. “How many people are dead, Catt?” she asked wearily.  
  
Damn. Failure.  
  
“ _Oh, lots and lots and lots of people worldwide are dead, little sis! Everyone who isn’t alive any more is dead. And also possibly everyone who hasn’t been born yet; not quite sure whether they could as dead, or just un-alive, and whether that’s different from being undead. Like me!_ ”  
  
“… how many people are dead because of your actions since the last time we spoke?” Louise asked, fighting hard to resist the urge to thump the table.  
  
“ _Well, a few…_ ”  
  
Louise relaxed marginally. Perhaps this wouldn’t be quite so b-  
  
“ _… dozen men, horses and dogs. In my defence, they were all soldiers loyal to the Council and they broke into the house where I’d found somewhere to hide during the day and were being dreadfully rude to this nice young girl who was helping a poor innocent noble maiden caught out during the night._ ” Cattleya coughed. “ _I was the noble maiden, in case you didn’t guess,_ ” she said helpfully.  
  
Louise stared deep into the fireplace. When she spoke, each word came out like a drawn blade. “Cattleya? What. Did. We. Agree?”  
  
“ _Okay, Louise, I know you’re using your angry voice, but in my defence, they were shouting a lot and they had swords out and they were threatening to burn the house down and I hadn’t fed at all so if I got injured I’d die for real! Well, at least until someone found my ash and bled on me, but you wouldn’t even know where I was! And I don’t want to die. Double die! Whatever! Oh, and they said they’d kill the jolly nice girl who was helping me if they found that she was helping ‘traitors’! I panicked and I know I wasn’t meant to, but I did. I hope you’re not too angry with me,_ ” Cattleya said in a tiny voice.  
  
Louise was indeed too angry with her. She was in fact angry enough that she could not deal with this right now. “Just get back here right now,” she growled. “And don’t kill anyone else along the way! I mean it!”  
  
“ _Okay! I’ll head straight back! In fact, I’ll head straighter than straight back! I’ll go find you more goblins along the way! And more wolves for the cute little darlings, so they can ride them! I promise promise promise I won’t let you down and I won’t drink the blood of any humans unless they totally deserve it and are threatening innocents!_ ”  
  
“Don’t drink anyone’s blood!” Louise snapped. “Even if they deserve it! We are going to have to talk! A proper talk when I’ve calmed down, and… how are you even out and about! The sun’s still up!”  
  
“ _Uh… remember, little sis? The clothes from Jessica? I even get to use my super-duper-amazing vampire talents as long as I’m not in direct sunlight!_ ”  
  
“… just get back here right now.”  
  
“ _Righto! I’ll just get you your wolves and goblins as I get right back here! And also, uh… can you ask Jessica how you wash blood out of this leather? She said it was blood-proof, but it’s leaking? Oh! And another thing, you know that nice girl I mentioned! Well, I hired her as a maid and she’s with me right now and we’re coming back because I realised you needed another maid because we need to look after the princess! All right! See you soon! Lots of love! Bye!_ ”  
  
Louise gritted her teeth. She needed to find something to vent her rage on. Something that wouldn’t involve her shouting at her sister and saying something she’d regret later. Something which was totally morally acceptable. Something which could allow her to let out her anger without in any way it being a sin. Something which every sane individual would go ‘yes, she acted righteously in doing that’.  
  
There was a jangle of bells behind her. “Prithee, overlady! All hail to thee! Queen of Evil Things Done With Her Sinister Hand!”  
  
Perfect.  
  
“She Who Sleeps With Princ…arrrrrrrrrrrgh!”  
  
Flame roared, lightning cracked, and Louise went about making herself feel better.


	35. A Date With Destiny 7-2

“ _And so I speak unto thee, my followers, and tell you this; in secret, thou must work to spread doubt and disbelief among the followers of the religions of the world. Whisper unto the ears of the learned, and teach them to ask really hard-to-answer questions which push the limits of dogma. Spread malicious lies about the clergy, if thou canst not find inconvenient truths to blackmail them with. And above all, act to cast down the festival of the Silver Pentacle. Let its name not be spoken in its holy time! Let its icons not be shown to children! Let the old wicked festivals of the darkness and of the cold times re-emerge. Thus I command thee! Go forth and do my bidding!_ ”  
  
– Athe, speaking to his cultists

* * *

“Hello?” A tentative knock roused Louise from her torment of paperwork. It was entering its third agonising day, and she was beginning to suspect that Gnarl might have been sneaking extra bits of paper into her ‘to do’ pile when she took toilet breaks. “Are you busy?”  
  
“Of course not, your highness,” Louise said, putting her quill down and working her hand. “Please, come in.”  
  
“Oh, very nice,” Henrietta said, shuffling through the door. “So this is, what? Your scribing-things office?”  
  
Louise looked over at Princess Henrietta, and swallowed. “Um. What are you wearing? Under that dressing gown, I mean? Is that one of Jessica’s… things?”  
  
Henrietta smoothed down her black shirt, emblazoned with burning runes. “This? Yes, it is. And I’m not entirely sure what it is. She was taking my measurements and then I needed to… uh, go to relieve myself, but we didn’t want to have to put all my skirts back on, so she went and found some clothes of hers which she said had shrunk and didn’t fit her anymore.” Henrietta lowered her voice. “I think it’s more she… uh, was a little wide for them,” she said, with a hint of giggle. “But they certainly are a bit tight in some ways,” she said, pointing.  
  
Louise followed her finger. The burning runes were, now she looked closer, somewhat stretched.  
  
“It’d probably be like a tent on you,” Henrietta said. “Jessica has narrower shoulders than me and that makes it tight around the chest too.”  
  
Louise coughed. “I see,” she mumbled. “So… uh. Is it going well? I would have seen more of you, but the day before yesterday I spent the evening,” Louise blushed, “well, I got a little carried away reading a new book I purchased on lightning magic, and yesterday evening I had to go enslave a tribe of goblins which Gnarl reported were moving through the outer edges of the swamp.” She glowered. “It was not how I planned to spend the evening.”  
  
“Oh my! All that time, tromping around through foulness. Were there many frogs?”  
  
“Far too many,” Louise said glumly. “But enough about that. How is Jessica?”  
  
“Oh yes, she’s a very nice girl,” Henrietta said happily. “We’re getting on well.”  
  
The evil overlady of vile darkness relaxed slightly. She had worried that Henrietta’s innate righteousness might rankle with Jessica’s likewise innate mild depravity.  
  
“Well, she’s taken my measurements and we’ve agreed on a first draft design,” Henrietta continued, “so she let me out to go to the toilets and have something to eat, while she works at it. And then I thought I’d go find you instead. Have you lunched?” She looked at Louise assessingly, taking in the bags under her eyes. “Or breakfasted, for that matter?”  
  
Louise winced. “I have it delivered here when I’m working like this,” she admitted. She waved her hand over the tray on her desk. “I still have some things leftover; please, feel free.”  
  
Henrietta’s hand went to her mouth. “My goodness!” she said. “Louise Françoise, you are working so hard at this!” she said, moving in to hoover up the last remnants of the food. “And how do you get grapes in winter?”  
  
“Uh… I think they come from Abyssal hothouses. Apparently they have ways of growing southern crops all year around.” Probably by burning damned souls, Louise didn’t say. She didn’t know that for sure, and they were very good grapes. “As I said, feel free,” she said, somewhat late as Henrietta had already stripped the stem bare. “I have… yuck,” she said expressively, gesturing over the mounds of paper which lay before her.  
  
Henrietta picked up one of the envelopes from the top of the ‘in’ pile, and slit it open with her thumbnail. After chewing firmly and swallowing, she coughed, and said, “So what’s this, then?”  
  
“Oh, goodness knows,” Louise said, sighing and holding her head in her hands. “The letters started coming as soon as I announced that I’d kidnapped you, and since the journals came out… well, they haven’t stopped. It’s dreadful! How many of them do I need to say ‘no, I’m not going to go and talk to you and tell you all sorts of things about my plans and my goals and… and what kind of armour I wear and things like that’… how many times do I need to say that? I don’t want to talk to crowds in hell! Especially not so their nasty journal writers can write down everything I say? What possible reason could they have for doing that, I ask you? They’re clearly up to something!”  
  
“Breathe, Louise Françoise,” Henrietta said, frowning as she read the letter.  
  
Louise remembered to breathe, the redness in her face fading. It then re-appeared somewhat as she realised she was being dreadfully rude by using Princess Henrietta as a person to vent all her anger and frustration at her day-to-day life on. She was acting in a truly shocking manner! “I am dreadfully sorry to be ranting like this to you,” she apologised hastily.  
  
Henrietta sighed. “Louise Françoise,” she said, “why do you appear to be turning down all these chances to impress and intimidate the damned souls of the Abyss? Look at this! You are most cordially invited to a personal one on one interview with the editor of Kolasipolitan, to be drawn and give you a chance to spread your word through the Abyss. Surely that is worth doing? After all, the Council is frightfully strong, no?”  
  
“I’ll deal with it myself,” Louise said. “Without having to talk to them.”  
  
“Jessica said that it is a very reputable journal,” Henrietta said.  
  
“Jessica says many things,” Louise retorted. “She probably _really_ meant ‘refutable’, anyway.”  
  
“But this just appears to be the Infernal equivalent of royal pronouncements,” Henrietta said. “Or, indeed, the messages that your own dear parents convey to those who owe loyalty to them. This would be, by my admittedly limited understanding, a customary part of your role as a wicked overlady.”  
  
Louise failed to find an answer to that, and settled for crossing her arms. “Well… well I don’t have to the things I don’t want to, and that’s that,” she said, tossing her hair back. The matter settled, she went back to her paperwork, sulking.

* * *

“She’s doing _what?_ ” Jessica exploded. It was more than just a metaphor; the shadowy wings tearing out of her back providing a rather literal component to the description.  
  
Henrietta leaned back, away from the rapidly demonising figure before her. “She’s…” she sniffed, eyes reddening, “she’s not wanting to go to do the… I c-can’t remember the words, but we were talking about it when we… we…” Henrietta started to cry, “when we read all those journals…”  
  
“Argh! That girl! How… how dare she!” Jessica began to smoulder, heat radiating off her. There was a ripping noise as her shirt split at the seams, revealing a well-muscled, broad, masculine chest, and her boots tore open to reveal hooves. “Doesn’t she know what she’s doing? I told her! I told her!” Jessica gave a luxuriant and alluring glare at Henrietta. “I told you, too, but you’re not being stupid about it! Which is something that’s not… not fucking stupid! Argh!” she bellowed deeply.  
  
“I tried to talk to her,” Henrietta blubbered, “but she… she… she shrugged me off and didn’twanttotalk!”  
  
“… wait.” Jessica raised a gnarled, clawed finger. “Time out. This is weird. I’ll just get back to shouting at Lou in a moment, but why are you crying and… you know, not trying to tear all my clothes off?”  
  
“I… I l-look at you,” Henrietta blubbered, “and all I c-c-can think of is my poor sw-sweet prince! And how they killed him!”  
  
Jessica raised a devilishly handsome eyebrow. “True love. Wow. Huh. Never encountered that sort of thing before, but I’ve heard of the tales.” She shifted awkwardly. “Look… uh,” she dug through her pockets, “would you like to borrow a hanky?”  
  
Henrietta took the offered rag, and blew her nose. “I… I…” she managed, and broke down again.  
  
Jessica rubbed the back of her neck, looking very embarrassed and also gorgeous in a sensitive way as a man confident enough in himself to show weakness. “Wow. Um. Awkward. And there’s no way I’m going to have it out with Louise looking like this, because we’ll just end up… uh, well, I’ll have to run away, and she’s probably learned some kind of binding magic or something so that might cause problems. Look, uh, I’ll just go lock myself in my bathroom and calm down, and then shave off this goatee, and we’ll try to talk about this calmly.”  
  
There was a honking noise as Henrietta tried to clear her nose, and failed.  
  
Half an hour later, Jessica emerged with some small bits of paper stuck to her chin. “Feeling better?” she asked. “Less heartbroken that your one true love is gone and that you’ll never love another man and stuff like that?”  
  
Henrietta nodded mutely.  
  
“Okay. Let’s try this again. And… uh, tell me if I’m starting to make you sad.” Jessica sighed, stretching out. “I worry about Lou,” she said frankly. “She’s gifted, but she’s so inexperienced, even after a year. She’s a prodigy at dark magic, scheming, and controlling her kinda-small legion, but she just doesn’t get the social side of things. Like, I’ve tried to hint to her that she should go to more parties and publicise her things more, but she’s this strange mix of brash and cautious which… well, she doesn’t get the wrong way of doing things. And doesn’t want to learn. You know her better; how can I help her?”  
  
Henrietta wrapped the blanket closer around herself. “She’s my oldest friend,” she said. “My only friend, too, if I’m to be quite honest. I mean, I had other playmates as a child, but most of the others… well, you could tell that they were just playing with me because their parents told them they had to be nice to the crown princess. I think she was lonely, too. She was always happy to see me, and never wanted to leave. Especially as she got older and the other royal playmates made fun of her behind her back. Of course, I had the nursemaids spank them for that, but then they stopped playing with me. And my mother told me I was being rude by protecting my friend, can you believe that?”  
  
“Aww, man, that sucks. I know just how that feels,” Jessica said, her shoulders slumping. “Guess things are just as bad up in the topworld, too. I was always the half-blood as a kid. Which is totally not fair, for your information, because lots of succubae are half-bloods, but people don’t call them that as long as they’re girls!”  
  
“Huh. I suppose I’d never thought of it like that,” Henrietta said. “But Louise Françoise… well.” She rolled her shoulders. “She was always quite shy and quiet, and very protective of her friends. She’s got quite a temper, and as she got older, I got the feeling that around other people she got to relying on her temper to make people take her seriously, because… well, come on. Have you seen her? I would not have pinned her as someone to stomp around in steel.”  
  
“She’s adorable,” Jessica said, grinning. “So cute!”  
  
“Yes. She’s petite, slight, and pretty,” Henrietta agreed. She sighed. “Prettier than me. She’s slender and doesn’t have blocky shoulders and fat calves. I put on muscle at a snap which means my dresses never sit quite right, and I’ve got big bones on top of that. Louise Françoise takes after her mother, and the duchess de la Vallière is the most elegant woman I’ve ever seen.” She shuddered. “Scary, though. She moves like a tiger. One of the kings of Ind sent one as a gift to my mother, you know. They’re beautiful animals, but scary.”  
  
“She worries about her mother,” Jessica said, shaking her head. “Which is entirely sensible, because no one wants the Heavy Wind after them, but it’s more than that. She has pictures of her up in her planning room, and I’ve talked with her sister and… well, I think she loves her. And is scared of her.”  
  
“Her sister?” Henrietta asked, frowning. “Excuse me? Is Eleanore involved in this too? Well, I wouldn’t put it past her. I’ve heard some tales of what she gets up to in Amstreldamme, and… well, I have to say, she sounds like a dangerous woman.”  
  
“Nah, I was talking about Catt,” Jessica said, standing up and pouring herself another drink. “Want one?”  
  
“Thank you very much,” Henrietta said. “Cattleya’s involved in this? Well, that is a surprise. I’ve met her a few times, but she’s sickly. She can’t even go out of the house. I would say it is jolly irresponsible for Louise to have involved her in that. But no, now that you mention it, Louise did mention that in passing yesterday. She said she was in Bruxelles at the moment.”  
  
“Yeah,” Jessica said, passing her the glass, “you should probably talk to Lou about that. Or Catt herself when she gets back.” She sat back up on the chair, crossing her legs. “So, anyway, thanks for that. I want to help Lou, because I like her, but… well, you’ve seen what I’m like. I was raised by Dad in the Abyss; I don’t really know how you upsiders live, so I don’t really know where she’s coming from when she says a lot of things. Like, I have no fucking idea why she’s so bloody repressed about everything? I could put her in some amazing dresses, but she just refuses anything that doesn’t cover her up!”  
  
Henrietta blushed at the profanity, and then broke into giggles. “That’s most likely because of her family,” she said, when she had got herself under control. “The thing you must remember about the de la Vallière family is that they are by bloodline and deed perhaps the most wicked and depraved family in all of Tristain… nay, possibly in all of Halkeginia. Their trick as a family has always been that they’re fanatically royalist, and so my ancestors have always ignored their little habits because they always paid their taxes – and are fanatically rich – and have saved the kingdom several times. Or… uh, have joined in those little hobbies if they were some of my less reputable ancestors.”  
  
She paused and tilted her head. “Admittedly, the things they did to the people threatening it is not suitable material for any well-bred ladies to be talking about – unless they are of the de la Vallière family, at least – but previous kings and queens always preferred to have a thoroughly nasty family like that on their side. Just look at her paternal grandparents; her grandfather once put down a peasant revolt which had killed the local lord and was marching on Ghent by using blood magic to force the peasants to murder each other in their sleep, and her grandmother – or so I heard – sacrificed babies to keep her youth and poisoned traitors to the crown on the orders of my grandfather. Or possibly the other way around, I forget.  
  
“But Louise’s father was a disgrace to the family, and ran away and joined the Manticore Knights. He met her mother there, and the thing about the two of them is that they’re Heroes, despite the bloodline. From some of the things Louise has said, I think they’ve been scared that she or her sisters might turn out like their ancestors.”  
  
Jessica snorted. “Hah. Pretty grounded fears, it seems. But she’s just not bad enough at being Evil… or least, the wrong kind of wrong,” Henrietta went slightly cross-eyed as she tried to decode that sentence, but Jessica continued anyway, “which means she needs help! And lots of it!”  
  
“Well, she is a friend,” Henrietta said slowly, “and she did get me out of that awful, awful jail my wretched mother shut me in, so I suppose I should help her somewhat. I am a princess, after all, and I have my honour. And part of that is making the Council _suffer for the scurrilous lies they spread about me! How dare they!_ ”  
  
“Wow. So you and your prince never… you know?”  
  
“I remain a pure virgin of the royal blood of Brimir!” Henrietta declared triumphantly, putting her hands on her hips. “We were very careful to make sure of that. It would have been very wrong for us to act in such an inappropriate way as to make love before we were married!”  
  
“Huh.”  
  
“And as a princess, I am expected to deal with subordinates and handle the nobility, so I have been trained for certain things she has not. Before he died, my father was very clear that any well-bred princess should know how to handle a treasury and understand trade and the production of goods, defend herself against bandits, speak in public, avoid poisoned confectionary, fight in duels against evil sorcerous witch-kings, dance without causing a scandal, not get her best friend bitten by snakes, have an understanding of decoration which can be applied to all sorts of things, and many other minor skills like that.” Henrietta squared her jaw. “And my mother, who is stupid and weak, never countermanded the orders which set up my lessons.”  
  
Jessica tapped her fingers against her teeth. “Hmm. Yes. A plan appears. She’s sort of shy and doesn’t like speaking. You’re trained for it. You’re her friend and willing to act in her worst interests. So clearly we need you to dress up as her and carry out her public speaking for her!” Jessica declared loudly, pumping her fist in the air.  
  
There was a silence, as the two girls mentally compared Henrietta’s figure to Louise, and the improbability that Henrietta could ever manage to fit into Louise’s plate armour.  
  
“Yeah, that was a rubbish idea,” Jessica said, speaking for both of them. “Like, garbage-tier. Total crap. I have no idea what I was thinking. Or even if I was thinking at all. Got anything better?”

* * *

The sun was already setting when Cattleya arrived back, a clog-wearing redheaded and very pale commoner thrown over one shoulder. “I am exhausted!” she declared, putting her burden down. “You know, I’ve been up all day!” She patted the commoner on the shoulder. “There you go, Hellene! I told you we’d get back!”  
  
Louise looked up from her unceasing piles of paperwork. She was _sure_ that the pile had got larger last time she had gone to the toilet. She was planning to ask some very sharp questions of Gnarl, but he was nowhere to be seen.  
  
She was beginning to think that he was lurking somewhere invisibly.  
  
However, at the moment, she had rather more pressing and relevant concerns. Like the fact that her sister had just barged through her door and had several crudely patched holes in her clothes.  
  
“Are you all right?” she asked, voice rising.  
  
“Oh, fine, fine,” Cattleya said cheerfully. “Mustn’t grumble. Well, I got stabbed a few times and shot a bit and some dreadfully rude person set me on fire, but don’t worry! The fire went out when I threw myself in a well while screaming. My clothes are more damaged than I am, though. Well, now. I was sort of slightly a mess at the time, but I fixed all the flesh I lost and managed to even regrow my hand! And trust me, I was a teeny bit concerned I couldn’t do that!”  
  
Louise was not notably calmed by those comments.  
  
“You didn’t tell me you were injured!” she said. “Oh, Cattleya! I thought you just… went a little over the top, but… you could have died!”  
  
“Un-died. Or re-died. I’m not sure what…”  
  
“Now is not the time!” Louise almost shrieked. “You could have been burned up in the sun or… you could have just ended up as ash! Why didn’t you call for help? I… I would have come right for you!” Louise slumped down. “I should have come anyway. I should have been there to get you back, rather than be… be stuck with this stupid useless paperwork! It’s… it’s all my fault and… and to think I shouted at you, too!”  
  
Cattleya swept up, enveloping her in a room-temperature hug. “There, there,” she said. “I was happy to have a chance to be out and about, you know? Yes, I got hurt, but I got better! And I met some really nice people! Oooh, oooh, I have so much to tell you!”  
  
There was a slow knock at the door, and Louise welcomed the distraction. “Come in,” she called out.  
  
Slowly, Cattleya’s maid, opened the door. “Oh, Mistress Cattleya!” she said. “I’m so glad to see that you’re back and… and you’re hurt! You were meant to stop her getting hurt!” she told Louise accusingly.  
  
Having the help talk to her in such a manner was quite a surprise for Louise, and she was not entirely sure how to respond to it. “Um,” she said.  
  
“Oh, Anne,” Cattleya said, drifting over to pat her on the head. “I’ve missed you! And don’t worry! I’m not hurt, just my clothes!”  
  
“But you look all hurt and…”  
  
“Not anymore! Oh! By the way, this is Helene! I met her on the way back and she’ll also be joining my service! Helene, this is Anne! She’s been my servant for years and years. Anne, please go show Helene around. And I will be cross with you if you aren’t friends!”  
  
Louise crossed her arms, and waited for the older women to leave the room. “Catt,” she asked, sternly, “how much of her blood have you drunken? Because I notice she looks very pale. Almost as pale as you.”  
  
Cattleya sucked in a breath. “… well, just a teeny tiny bit. But! But, but but, before you get angry, that’s just something that happens when I feed on someone and want to help them! I can’t help it! And it wears off in time! And they’re both sweet and Anne has been my maid for years and Helene was very enthusiastic and also she got shot by those rude men before I sort of killed them all a little bit, and I had to sew her back up and clean the wound and… well, there was all that blood going to waste! And… well, she was very hurt, so I had to go find someone to help! I had to!”  
  
“I understand,” Louise said softly, offering Cattleya a seat. “Are you sure you’re fine now?”  
  
“Oh, yes yes. And, well, you know that dreadful, dreadful man, the Vicomte de Announ?”  
  
“No.” Louise looked around. “I’d offer you wine, but… well, you don’t drink wine.”  
  
“He really is shocking!”  
  
“… where are you going with this, Cattleya?”  
  
“I sort of broke into his house, just a teeny bit when I was looking for help. Well, I mean, I tapped at a door until someone said ‘come in’, which meant I was invited in and could do whatever I wanted. And well, one thing led to another, and – you know his wife is very young and she hates him? She can’t stand him! Well, she was being very friendly and let me stay for the day and got a healer for Helene, because she wanted anyone to talk to at all!”  
  
“… I don’t get where this is going. So you befriended a lonely noblewoman? I suppose that’s better than you breaking in and killing people, but what’s the point?”  
  
“Well, some of the things she told me… he’s a big supporter of the Council! Apparently, they’ve just recently started work on a brand new munitions factory close to Amstreldamme! With the latest in modern manufacturing equipment! She reads his papers, you know, when he’s not around. Poor girl.”  
  
Louise blinked. That was actually very useful information indeed. “Thank you, Catt, that’s very useful, and…”  
  
“Also, he got a teeny weeny itty bitty bit fatally mauled to death by a giant wolf when he was out riding late at night!”  
  
“Catt. Did you tell the wolf to attack him?” Louise asked suspiciously.  
  
“No! No, I did not tell any wolf to attack him!” Cattleya said indignantly. “Louise! To say such a thing. Well, anyway, when his wife was grief-stricken – she said she was very sad, and even said ‘sob sob’, you know! – she let a few things slip. Did you know, there’s a cabal of well-educated young women with boorish husbands who meet up occasionally and talk about the current state of affairs in Tristain? They’re very opposed to the policies of the Council! Well, the recently widowed vicomtesse de Announ invited me to join! And she said she’ll even get them to overlook how I’m a vampire and so can’t pledge my soul to the dark god they worship!”  
  
Louise let out a long, slow breath. “You did _all of that_ in… a couple of days? How?”  
  
“Um. It just sort of happened,” Cattleya said, looking sheepish in a long-canined and thus not very sheep-like way.  
  
“Cattleya,” Louise said slowly, “not only did you kill several dozen people, you also joined a secret demon-worshipping…”  
  
“Dark god worshipping,” Cattleya corrected her.  
  
“Is there a difference?”  
  
“Apparently, yes,” her sister said earnestly. “I’m not sure myself. I think our theology tutors were jolly remiss in not covering the whole evil side of the religious spectrum.”  
  
Louise balled her fists. “I don’t want you joining a secret cult of noblewomen worshiping a dark god!” she snapped. “What would mother and father say?”  
  
“It’s fine,” Cattleya said reassuringly. “I know you’re worried for my soul, Louise, which is just adorably sweet of you, but don’t worry! Because I’m a vampire, I can’t sell it! Joke’s on them!”  
  
Louise twitched.  
  
“Anyway, they mostly worship Athe the Doubter and the syzygy Femin-Anark, and I got on fairly well with Athe when I met him at that super-awesome party we went to at the Cabal Awards. Me and him are,” Cattleya said, “like, totally tight.” She tried to cross her fingers, which took a few seconds of concentration, and held them up proudly.  
  
“… what does that even mean?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Cattleya admitted. “Jessica said you and her were ‘like, totally tight,’ though. So I believe it means we get on well. I think we did, anyway. I’ve exchanged a few letters with him on the topic of anatomy!” She smiled. “He said some of my observations on the skeletal structure of winged horses were very astute! He’s really smart and he thinks I’m clever!”  
  
“I think,” Louise said, trying not to think about the fact that her sister was exchanging letters with a dark god, writing about the mutilated equines she kept… uh, _somewhere_ in the tower, “as a general principle, we should avoid using words Jessica uses if we don’t know what they mean.” She paused. “Or possibly if we think we know what they mean, but she seems to be using them in a completely different way to how we’d use them.”  
  
She sat back in her chair, tapping her fingers together, and took a deep breath. “Firstly, Cattleya, I would like to tell you that your maids are your responsibility and thus you are to keep them from… you know, spying on us or anything like that. Honestly, I am not very happy you let them in here when I was not wearing my helmet. Not very happy at all.”  
  
“… oops. I didn’t think of that.”  
  
“Secondly,” Louise continued mercilessly, “I would like the full story of everything you found out from the vicomtesse de Anoun and her husband’s papers and whatever, including information on the cult. This is important information, and I do believe that our next major plan may be to destroy those places that the Council is building.”  
  
“Oh yes! And they’re also planning to move against father! I should have mentioned that earlier!”  
  
“What?!”  
  
It was a painful process getting everything from Cattleya, mainly due to her remarkable capacity to go off on tangents. Several exhausting hours later, though, Louise felt that she had everything. She worked her hand, which was cramping up after filling several pages with neat cursive notes on what her sister had seen.  
  
She didn’t like the cult Cattleya had joined. Not one bit. Not only was it blasphemous and wicked, but it was the wrong sort of blasphemous and wicked. Even before she had become a technically evil overlady trying to crush certain bits of Halkegninia beneath her goblinoid hordes, she had felt that that kind of overt evil was – well, it was more _respectable_. Yes, she might have unleashed foul-smelling and moronic goblins on people, but by and large, the people she attacked had a chance to defend themselves.  
  
Admittedly, mostly because she hadn’t found a way to stop the minions from accidentally alerting their enemies, but the point remained. It was _fair_ in a way. Not like treacherous wicked cults. They worked from the inside and were generally much more evil and sinister in a much worse way than she was.  
  
So she should probably take full advantage of them before turning on them and wiping them out, and do all of that _before_ she became publically good again. Cutting out a malignant sickness like those worshippers of Athe had to be the right thing to do, right? And she even had an agent on the inside. Louise smiled to herself softly. Now, to embarrass the Council by destroying their things before they even… got… started…  
  
The smile became a groan and Louise let her head sink into her hands as a sudden realisation hit her. “Cattleya?” she asked her sister, who was on her way out.  
  
“Mmm hmm?”  
  
“The wolf that killed the vicomte de Announ? You know, the man who was killed by a giant wolf? The man whose wife who worships a dark god and you befriended?”  
  
“Mmm hmm?”  
  
“The one who you said quite clearly that you didn’t tell any wolf to kill him?”  
  
“Yep! That one!”  
  
“… were you the wolf?”  
  
Her older sister paused at the door, and opened her mouth. And closed it again. She drew a hesitant breath. “I wasn’t _not_ the wolf!” she tried.  
  
“Cattleya!”  
  
“What? His wife _asked_ me to! What happened to Monsieur Manners? And,” Cattleya added, jabbing her finger at her sister, “for your information, I did exactly what you told me to! I didn’t drink his blood at all! I spat it all out! Even when I tore out his throat! So you can’t shout at me for that! So there!”  
  
She ducked behind the door and slammed it shut just in time to avoid the ballistic teacup.

* * *

The heavily singed jester bounced down the stairs to the kitchen area, and collapsed into a steaming pile of blackened flesh. He pulled himself to his feet, swaying, and choked out, “… of maidens,” before falling over again.  
  
“Huh,” said the red-skinned Choppit, the minion head chef by virtue of the fact that he had the head of the previous chef strapped to his hat. “Looks like overlady in mood today.” He didn’t need to specify that it was a bad mood. The overlady didn’t have many other kinds. “Guttem! Go kick jester a few times. It are un-hi-jean-ic for him to lie around on floor, and if overlady see him there, she give another shoutiness about hi-jean. Worse than normal if she in mood.”  
  
“When she not in mood?”  
  
“She very angry with oversister. But is you wanting another lecture about hi-jean?”  
  
“No! It are all long words which are making no sense, and threats to set us on fire, which are making lots of sense! And now she has lightning so even reds no are safe!”  
  
“Throw jester down hole. Then he hi-jean problem of someone else.”  
  
The genius of the minion head chef was widely appreciated, and the jester was thrown down through a hole in the floor.  
  
“Now!” Choppit said, rolling up the sleeves which he had looted from a jacket specifically so he had sleeves he could roll up, “we is making dinner for overlady and princess tonight! So! What is the ideas for what they is gonna be eating?”  
  
A minion cleared his throat. “Ahem,” Maxy said unnecessarily. “I is here from overlady to tell you that you is going to be making…” and that was about as far as he got before being thrown down the same pit as the hapless jester.  
  
“Glork!” Choppit shouted. “That no was jester! That was Maxy! He are Maggat’s henchminion! Maggat are gonna be not happy with us!”  
  
“Was you sure ‘bout that?” Glork said. “He are playing music and telling poey-tree. Don’t that make him jester?”  
  
“No, because he not called jester, stoopid,” Choppit said, emphasising his word with a kitchen knife. “Now we is going to be in real trouble.”  
  
“Oh, really~” said a singsong voice, accompanied by the scraping of knives. “Because I is thinking you is already in trouble for breakin’ the chain of command and not listening to orders from overlady.”  
  
Choppit swallowed. “Um. Fettid. It are not very hi-jean-ic for you to be in kitchen… wait, no, no no no I can expl-urk.”  
  
“Don’t worry! I is bringing Scyl with me so no one will double-die! Only die twice or more!”  
  
And dinner was late.

* * *

Dinner was late.  
  
“I have had an utterly horrid day,” Louise said, massaging her temples with her fingers, her eyes drifting shut. In a breach of protocol, she was not sitting at the head of the table. It was very impractical to do that when one’s table was rather too large for just two people. Instead, she and Henrietta had agreed that if they sat on opposite sides of the table, then they could declare where Louise was to be the head, and in addition not have to shout to communicate. “Utterly and completely wretched.”  
  
“Oh my,” Henrietta said, looking around hungrily. Louise was momentarily worried by that, until she remembered that this wasn’t Cattleya, and so continued along the same vein of complaint.  
  
“Deeply and truly terrible. I am falling asleep where I sit here.”  
  
“Goodness gracious,” Henrietta said, rising to her feet and stepping around the shorter side of the table to stand beside her friend.  
  
Louise felt that Henrietta was perhaps not being the most cooperative. She did not particularly care at this point. “I have been cramped up in a room trying to handle paperwork. I am still exhausted from capturing goblins last night. I have been getting stupid letters from the stupid Abyss all day. I didn’t have lunch properly. Gnarl is being vaguely insubordinate at me. I still can’t get my stupid minion hive working. My sister is… argh! My sister is…” she slumped forwards, before jolting upright again.  
  
“Your sister is?” Henrietta continued. Reaching out, she squeezed Louise’s shoulder. “Dear me. You’re working so hard, and all for me.”  
  
Louise blushed pinkly. “It’s nothing, really, it’s nothing! And as for Cattleya... we will talk about this tomorrow, now that she’s back! I can’t deal with having to explain what’s up with her to you right now!” Louise said, getting louder. “Her and her blasted maids! And now I have a dratted letter from Emperor Lee and I can’t face him trying to… to blasted well kill me again! Does he think I enjoy it or something? What is he, stupid?”  
  
“Emperor Lee?” Henrietta asked, tilting her head.  
  
“Oh, he’s the emperor of Cathay,” Louise said, a trifle carelessly. “We met at a party and then he sent me his interpreter’s head. Which was just…”  
  
Henrietta’s hand was at her mouth. “My goodness, Louise Françoise!” she said, the shock clear in her voice. “The emperor of Cathay himself sent you the head of a trusted servant? Well, I hope you sent him something nice in response!”  
  
Louise had not sent him anything, and said so.  
  
“Louise Françoise! That’s dreadfully rude,” Henrietta chided her, taking her by the shoulders and turning her around. “Yes, sometimes other monarchs are wicked, but there’s such thing as manners. Otherwise, they might invade. Decency and civility is the coin of politics. What did he ask you to do?”  
  
“Oh. Um, he wanted me to go as his guest of honour to some grand performance in the Abyss?” she said, her voice turning that into a question when she really didn’t mean it that way. “And then dine with him?”  
  
“And how old is he? What does he look like?”  
  
“Maybe a year or so older than me. And… uh, he has dark hair and…”  
  
“Is he handsome?”  
  
Louise spluttered, and managed to turn a brighter shade of red, which took some doing.  
  
“Louise Françoise!” Henrietta stated, leaning over her with all the regal dignity she could muster. “You are not turning this down! He is the Emperor of Cathay as well as a hellish blight upon the world and you will treat him with the utmost respect!” She paused. “Well, I tell a lie. But you will treat him with enough respect that he does not hold grudges!”  
  
Louise swallowed, staring up at Henrietta. She was blushing like a schoolgirl and felt dreadfully, horribly ashamed. She could feel her eyes welling up, and her vision blurring, but she tried to fight it off. She wouldn’t cry! She wouldn’t. She wasn’t some child who started blubbering at a moment’s notice! She was a dark overlady!  
  
Who was about to cry.  
  
“You will dine with the Cathayan emperor in the Abyss, and that’s that! And while you’re there, you will talk to several tactfully chosen journals, and you will be drawn in your armour in them! And Jessica and I will accompany you, because she needs to do some shopping and I have not been kidnapped from my mother’s prison to spend my time in your much more comfortable and pleasant, thank you very much, jail! Not when I can provide you with assistance! As your prisoner, I of course can’t make you do this, but as your princess, I am ordering you to do that!”  
  
Louise stood up to her full height, which was still sadly somewhat below Henrietta’s, and thus the well-reasoned and arrogant retort she had been about to make was completely forgotten. That might have been for the best, but she wasn’t thinking of such things at this point.  
  
“Fine!” she said. “Fine! I’ll go! I’ll… I’ll do it!” Her eyes were burning and she could see their glow on Henrietta’s face, and she only hoped it was hiding the tears. “I’m… I saved you and now you’re bullying me and… and…” she turned on her heel and stormed out.  
  
“Oh my,” Gnarl said, smiling faintly to himself as he wandered through, snacking on mushrooms. “Oh deary deary me.”  
  
“Is there something you wish to say?” Henrietta snapped, turning pink herself.  
  
“I have the feeling that you will be a most enjoyable addition to this humble Tower,” the old goblin said, bowing. “You really are a dreadful little girl, aren’t you? The very worst kind of princess, in my opinion. Most of them are just soppy and pathetic and pine away hoping for their true love to come save them – which he usually fails to do when he’s been boiled alive in hot oil and some adorable little minion is wearing his helmet– but…”  
  
“But my true love is dead,” Henrietta said, eyes narrowing, “and I am going to do my jolly best to help Louise Françoise deal with the murderous swine who betrayed him. I could sit around moping, or I could roll up my sleeves and help her stoke the hot oil, and make sure she doesn’t slack off. And then she can darn well go conquer Albion, or at the very least pin down that wretched Cromwell man while I bash his head in with a mace!”  
  
“Oh, you are a treat.” Gnarl said happily. “And don’t worry about the overlady. Even now, she’s probably telling herself that you were right, and rationalising that at least it’ll get her away from the mysteriously unending joys of bureaucracy.” He shook his head. “She doesn’t appreciate it properly,” he said, voice tinged with melancholy.

* * *

Red-eyed, Louise stared at herself in the mirror and blotted at her face with a handkerchief. Away from Henrietta, away from the hot-blooded emotions, cold rationality told her that her princess was probably right.  
  
She just didn’t want to do this.  
  
“Well,” she said, squaring her jaw, “at least I can make Gnarl finish the paperwork when I’m away.”


	36. A Date With Destiny 7-3

_“A cogent point, well made. At least, that is what I would say if my esteemed opponent was capable of making points which were cogent or well-made. Sadly, I live in disappointment. Woe to us that this world causes such pessimism, but it seems my opponent respects you, my audience, even less than he respects common decency and morality. That can be the only reason he trots out tired rote repetitions of the intellectually bankrupt doctrines of Arkheostotle rather than perform original research. Why, he was too busy as to even count the number of teeth in the human jaw! But what was he doing instead of basic verification of his hypothesis? Well, I have certain testimonies here which I believe I shall entertain you with by reading out loud in a mocking tone. Respectable ladies in the audience, such as my opponent’s wife, may wish to cover their ears and observe the overhead projection instead, which will be displaying amusing yet factual sketches of his adventures with Madame ‘Ka Shwing’.”_  
  
–  Eleanore de la Vallière

* * *

The next morning, Louise, fully armoured save for her helmet, stepped neatly up to her sister’s door and knocked on it. The racket from the Gauntlet made the whole rigmarole of getting changed worth it.  
  
A decidedly tousled-looking Cattleya blearily opened the door. She smelt notably of blood, and there were red-brown speckles on her nightgown. “Mmmurgh,” she managed. “Later. Tired. Sleep.”  
  
“Cattleya, it’s almost lunchtime.”  
  
“Yes. Far, far too early. Wait until… two.”  
  
Louise crossed her arms. “We need to have the conversation with Princess Henrietta about you. Right now. To clear the air and so we don’t have to keep on dancing around the topic.”  
  
Cattleya groaned and massaged her brow. “Give me ten minutes. Freshen up and wake up, and I’ll be there. Then sleepy time again.”  
  
“I’ll help you,” Louise said firmly. “To prevent you from… oh, say, going straight back to bed again.” She glanced into the room, with its carpet of sleeping wolves and mussed maids. “Uh… though we’re taking you through to my bathroom. And if you dose off again, I’ll send the minions to wash you.”  
  
“I’ll be good,” Cattleya said in a small voice.  
  
It was a rather more kempt and coherent Cattleya who presented herself to the princess in the great hall. Henrietta was curled up on one of the cushioned seats, reading a book. The princess was dressed in a rather tight pale pink shift, although she had hinted –smiling as she did so – to Louise that Jessica was almost done with a more formal garment.  
  
“Your highness,” Louise said formally, helmet held under her arm, “may I present to you my sister.”  
  
“My goodness!” Cattleya said cheerfully. “Little Henrietta! Haven’t you grown so much! Last time I saw you, you were all adorable and tiny and rosy-cheeked! You wanted the biggest slice of cake at my tenth birthday party! And took it! And pushed over the boy who was going to take that plate! And then took Louise’s cake too!”  
  
Louise sighed. She really should have seen this coming. She also had no memory of having her cake taken by Henrietta. Perhaps Cattleya was making it up. She wouldn’t put it beyond her. Or at the very least, she was ‘remembering’ it as more amusing than it actually was.  
  
Henrietta blushed. “I did? I would just like to say, I’m very sorry for that,” she said quickly. “That was very rude of me indeed.” She paused. “Um. Louise Françoise, I must say… your sister’s eyes are glowing somewhat. A certain… oh, crimson colour?”  
  
“Only a little bit!” Cattleya protested.  
  
“Yes, Henrietta,” Louise said. “That was why I felt I had to clear the air here.”  
  
“Ah,” Henrietta said understandingly. “The way she never went to court. The paleness. The slightly morbid air around her. She’s dead, no? Well, rather, undead.”  
  
“You’d guessed?”  
  
“Well, seeing her like this let me put things together.” Henrietta paused, clearly considering how to phrase what she was about to say. “She’s most certainly a lich, isn’t she?”  
  
“Uh.” Louise paused. “Not… quite.”  
  
“Ah! Then she’s a ghoul! I have no idea what ancient curse on the de la Vallière line reawakened with her, but there rather a lot of them and I do know that cannibalism has been most regretfully prevalent among your forefathers.”  
  
“No, I…”  
  
“Hmm. Well, I do remember that she was very musical. Is she a banshee?”  
  
“She’s a vampire!” Louise managed, as this seemed to be the only way she could get the words out.  
  
“Hello!” Cattleya said, waving.  
  
“Oh. Oh,” Henrietta said quietly. Her face fell. “That’s… uh. A thing.”  
  
“Is that a problem?” Louise asked quickly, moving over to support her friend. She took Henrietta’s hand, and the other girl squeezed it back, her lips locked in a thin nervous line.  
  
“I… I can’t say I like vampires very much,” Henrietta said quietly. “I was kidnapped by one when I was twelve. It was the scariest time, especially since it was only the second attempt.”  
  
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Cattleya said warmly. “I hate vampires too. I try to kill them whenever I can. Each one I kill makes the world a better place and they also taste so good. I mean, really good. Like, eating vampires is better than…” she trailed off. “Um, killing them gives me the taste of revenge?”  
  
“Do you promise not to try to drink my blood?” Henrietta said. Louise could feel her shaking slightly.  
  
“She promises,” Louise said, her voice hard, “don’t you, Catt? And she also promises not to actually drink your blood, or do anything else which is like that. _Right._ ”  
  
Cattleya pouted. “Yes! Honestly! I am not going to feed from the princess! I have animals, thank you very much! And I also have my maids who are willing volunteers, for your information! It’s very hurtful when people assume that…”  
  
Louise raised an eyebrow. “Assume that vampires are blood-drinking scary monsters?”  
  
“Yes! I’m a very friendly and cuddly blood-drinker!”  
  
Louise felt that Cattleya had not focussed on the correct part of the sentence, but she didn’t care to argue at the moment. Especially when Henrietta was squeezing her hand quite hard, and so needed to reassure her. “Yes. She is.” Louise crossed the fingers of her free hand behind her back, and then reconsidered if she really had to do that. After all, Cattleya was friendly and cuddly. She just was… uh, someone who was kind of scary when she was tearing people’s heads off. “Henrietta, you just have to understand, I only found this out since I started this whole overlady business. She was attacked by Louis de la Vallière when she was ten…”  
  
“The Bloody Duke?” Henrietta gasped.  
  
“Yes,” Louise said grimly. “He was doing it to punish my parents for daring to be Good – especially my father, for falling in love with my mother. So he went after my sister.” She paused. “Well, when we went to deal with him, he actually said he was going after me, but I had my window closed and Catt didn’t.”  
  
“Killing him was _wonderful_ ,” Cattleya said, eyes glazing over slightly. “I never thought I’d get to do that. I got to pay him back for a decade of… of _this_ , and it was jolly satisfying.”  
  
“Yes, we destroyed him just before last Silver Pentecost,” Louise said.  
  
“I thought vampires got better if you killed the one who bit them?” Henrietta said, frowning. “And you can let go of my hand, Louise. I… I just had a shock.”  
  
Louise blushed, and let go. “They do?” she said.  
  
Cattleya shook her head. “It only works for a very short period,” she said with a shrug, her expression turning slightly brittle. “It always works if it’s done before you die, and sometimes it works if you do it before the new vampire feeds. But they couldn’t kill him, and it was let me feed or starve me to re-death.” She flashed a smile. “So there’s no cure there. I just un-live with it. That’s me, I suppose. I’m helping my little sister with this, and then I’m headed home back to Mother and Father.”  
  
Henrietta swallowed. “Well, uh,” she began, “I very much appreciate your help with this, thank you.”  
  
Cattleya gave a wide grin. “Oh, it’s no problem! None at all! I’m very very very glad to be helping! After all, those people in the Council are a bunch of dratted rotters! And that sugar-headed stinker, the Viscount de Wardes, didn’t even wait a season after my little sister was supposedly dead to jump into the arms of another woman! That’s dreadfully improper!”  
  
Louise sighed in relief. “Well, now that we’ve said that, maybe we can go get Jessica and begin the planning for the…”  
  
“No,” Cattleya said firmly. “I am going back to bed, and that’s that. Proper young ladies get at least eight hours sleep a night, and I went to bed at five in the morning because there were things I had to do, so my carefully planned sleep regime is already out of synch. Good… uh, lunchtime, Louise. Don’t start the planning thingiemabob without me.” Turning on her heel, she walked out. And then turned back again, and let out a high pitched squeal. “And it’s so adorable that my little sister has started courting! And an emperor, no less!”  
  
Louise turned red. “It’s not courting! It’s just… I… I just want to keep on good terms with him, because he’s the emperor of Cathay!”  
  
“Yes! Blush like that in front of him! He’ll love it!”  
  
“Bed, Catt! Sleep!”

* * *

The thing Louise noticed over lunch was that all of a sudden, the tower had acquired a human element. Even if part of the human element was a tousled half-demon eating something involving sliced root vegetables fried in oil. She wasn’t alone save for the minions. And it had all happened since she had visited home, just before the Silver Pentecost.  
  
She happily cut herself another slice of soft cheese, layering it onto bread.  
  
She was almost certain that Jessica and Henrietta were planning something. Louise recognised Henrietta’s mischief-face, and Jessica had a natural-born talent for impish grins. She was going to ignore that for now, however, because she somewhat doubted she could do anything to stop it.  
  
“Your evilness,” Gnarl said, “if you have a few moments, I have things I must clarify with you.”  
  
Louise wiped her mouth. “Go ahead,” she said.  
  
He produced a pile of documents from nowhere. “I have checked and marked these things, and there are multiple errors. Your wickedness, it is necessary for both precision and reliability within the internal workings of your dark empire. It would be advisable for you to correct these mistakes.”  
  
“Um,” Louise said, with rising concern. “Yes, thank you very much, Gnarl. Just leave them on my desk and I’ll get around to them, really, I will. I just have a meeting I really need to attend.”  
  
Gnarl bowed. “Certainly, your wickedness,” he said, hobbling off.  
  
Louise breathed a sigh of relief. “Quick,” she said to the others. “Let’s get this thing done before he can find more things to foist off on me.”  
  
“Louise Françoise,” Henrietta observed, “he was right that mistakes are quite unacceptable in such things. My tutors made that eminently clear.”  
  
Louise almost said something rude about the aforementioned tutors and how she would have them thrown to the minions, but bit back the comment. She was just feeling short. Short tempered, that was. Not short in height. Even though she was the smallest human in the tower. Even in her heels. Stupid petiteness.  
  
Louise got bored and sent some minions to go wake up her sister. Once Cattleya had shown up, still looking somewhat tired, the meeting could begin.  
  
“Do we have an agenda?” Henrietta asked.  
  
“Of course,” Louise said. “We’re trying to overthrow the Council and make them suffer. Especially Viscount Wardes. It is a very sinister agenda.”  
  
“So!” Jessica declared, clapping her hands together happily. “We need to talk about the most important thing about the planned visit to the Abyss!”  
  
Louise nodded. “Yes. We certainly do. Have you finished making all those magical wards against poison, disease, insects, lack of air, drowning, the undead, demons, elves, fire, water, wind, earth, metal, amphibians, too much air… look, I gave you a list of everything I could think of last night. “Are you done?”  
  
Jessica blinked. “How can you say that’s the most important?” she protested. “And no, of course not; that was a pretty long list. And it’ll be really expensive for those short-run wards. I hope you don’t expect them to be permanent. But how is that the most important thing?”  
  
“Emperor Lee,” Louise said, glowering. “He’s going to try to kill me.”  
  
“You don’t know he’s going to try and kill you.”  
  
Louise smiled smugly. “Yes, I know, he’s not going to try _and_ kill me, at least if you can get that protection ready. However, he most certainly will try _to_ kill me.”  
  
Jessica looked confused.  
  
Cattleya burst out laughing. “Oh! It’s a joke based on wordplay! Oh, how very witty, little sister! Why, it’s most positively whimsical!”  
  
Louise shot her an annoyed glare. Cattleya was still not entirely in her good books. Or as Gnarl would put it, she was in her good books. Stupid evil vocabulary.  
  
“The important thing is… clothing!” Jessica proclaimed. “Fashion! It is your job to show off that you are at the cutting edge of fashion. You should be dressed so sharply that a thousand widows will cry because you cut their husbands up into chunks of meat just by turning around!”  
  
Henrietta raised her hand. “I don’t mean to interfere,” she said, “but wouldn’t that be rather messy?”  
  
“Yes,” Cattleya agreed. “And very wasteful. Oooh! Unless there was some way for the armour to absorb the blood and then…”  
  
“It was a simile!” Jessica said sulkily, crossing her arms. “You can’t cut more than two or three people up with even very pointy armour.”  
  
“Actually, it was a metaphor,” Louise interjected. “It would be a simile if…”  
  
“Enough!” Jessica stroked her chin, and looked Louise up and down. “I’m thinking something… padded,” she said. “Especially around the chest.”  
  
Louise nodded. “That’s probably a good idea,” she said. “When he tries to kill me, some extra padding under my armour will help stop bruising. Last time I got hit hard in the chest, it hurt to breathe for the next few days.”  
  
“Um,” Jessica said. “No, I… uh, no. I wasn’t thinking of that kind of padding.” She shook her head sadly. “Lou, you know you’re missing… like, half the experience of being an evil overlady. Dark gods, you’re missing well over half of it! We need to get some handsome oiled up young men wearing only cravats and very short and tight leather shorts around the place!”  
  
“Why would I want Germanians in here?” Louise said, wrinkling her nose. “Especially when, I note, they’d be dripping oil all over the place. That’s messy.”  
  
Jessica sighed. “See! You are an evil overlady! You should have beefcake!”  
  
“… why are you making cake out of beef?”  
  
“I mean mancandy!”  
  
Louise blanched. She had no idea why you’d want to take men and treat them as you would candied fruit, but it was probably a demonic and possibly cannibalistic thing. “I really don’t think it’s necessary.”  
  
“Quite right,” Cattleya agreed firmly. “We have no need to have scantily clad men all over the place. They would just lower our standards, and serve no productive purpose. Not like maids.” She tapped her lip. “Incidentally, little sister, we probably should get more maids. Do you know, there’s dust in the corners? And cobwebs and they’re _asymmetrical_ cobwebs. It’s driving me batty! They’re making the rooms all squint!”  
  
Louise sighed. “Catt, not now.”  
  
“I wonder if I could train spiders to be more symmetrical with their cobwebs?” Cattleya added.  
  
Louise ignored her sister. “Anyway, I’m wearing my armour,” she said. “With the new protective wards, of course. And, of course, you can polish it up and maybe add some nice new shiny engravings,” she added, showing her willingness to compromise.  
  
It was apparently not enough. “I could make you something wonderful and you could impress everyone and everything,” Jessica all-but wailed.  
  
“I ‘could’ do a lot of things,” Louise said. “I’m wearing my armour. Oh! But I do need a new surcoat and cape for it. The last one is finally giving up the ghost.”  
  
“It lasted you less than a week!” Jessica said. “What happened to it?”  
  
“Fire. Oh, and lightning. I was testing something and it got singed.”  
  
“I spelled it to be proof against that.” Jessica frowned. “Well, hmm.”  
  
Louise didn’t mention that the thing she had been testing was ‘how much raw firepower did she need to throw at the cloth before it burned’. It turned out it was rather resilient. But not resilient enough. Louise laughed to herself in a somewhat evil fashion, and got rather strange looks from the others.  
  
“What is so funny, Louise Françoise,” Henrietta asked, looking quizzical.  
  
“I just thought of something,” Louise said, blushing. “I’m… not going not wearing armour, and that’s that. Proper armour, too. If Emperor Lee can have assassins hiding under the table with… poisoned knives and things like that, and they can see bare flesh to stab me in, I’m not wearing enough.”  
  
“Well,” Jessica said, “fine. I’ll see if I can at least get you to try on some variants of the armour.”  
  
“Not if they make me less safe,” Louise said, crossing her arms. “I’m not budging.”  
  
“Look, I could make you a lovely dress to impress him and the journaleers! One which plays to your strengths and makes you look beautiful.” She sighed. “You don’t need to dress up like a gorgeous, fashion-revolutionising, brilliant armoury all the time.”  
  
“There is no need to be quite so shy,” Henrietta ventured. “One’s looks are a thing one must use in politics.”  
  
“I’m not going to act like a hussy!” Louise said firmly. “Especially one who might get stabbed.” She felt that the others weren’t being quite considerate enough on that point. It was certainly important to her.  
  
“A little bit of hussing is good for you,” Jessica said, grinning.  
  
“No, it really isn’t,” Louise said. “Especially when dining with Emperor Lee. This is the man who sent me a head in a box covered in explosive spells, remember? And who seems to be attracted to me mostly because I am not too ‘objectively suboptimal’ for his tastes.” Despite herself, Louise smiled. ‘Not too objectively suboptimal’ wasn’t the most flattering compliment she had ever had, but… okay, maybe it was up there. Which was a little sad, but she’d take what she could get.  
  
Cattleya giggled.  
  
“What is it, Catt?” Louise asked.  
  
“Oh, no, it’s nothing.”  
  
“No, really, what is it?”  
  
“Well, uh.” Cattleya bit her lip. “It’s funny because… well, objectively suboptimal and you’re… uh… um, you’re still young and so you still have some growing to do and it’s perfectly natural for you to be more like Mother there rather than take after Dad’s side of the family and…” Cattleya trailed away, falling as quiet as the grave.  
  
Louise was turning red.  
  
“I’ll just go find dinner!” Cattleya declared, bursting apart into a cloud of bats and flying away with indecent haste. And it was indecent haste, because she left her dress behind.  
  
The overlady of dark evilness took a few deep breaths, stood up, and kicked the jester capering behind her in the face. Then she let the air out. “Does anyone have anything else to say along those lines?” she asked sweetly, hands on her hips.  
  
“Nope,” Jessica said hastily.  
  
“I don’t get what’s so funny,” said Henrietta with a perfectly straight face.  
  
“Nothing! Nothing at all is funny!” shouted Louise, sinking down into her seat and sulking.  
  
Jessica clapped her hands together. “So,” she said, elongating the word. “Anyway! Lou! I’ve gone and organised some nice simple and easy interviews from only the most reputable journals – you know, the ones who always go soft on interviewees and allow you to pre-vet the questions they ask you. You know. Lackies.” She gave a wicked smile, and winked at Henrietta. “And I have the questions right here, so we can start to prep the answers right now!”  
  
“Why did you wink at Henrietta?” Louise said, refusing to be distracted.  
  
“Well, she should go get changed now,” Jessica said innocently. “Since we’re going to be busy now, I thought she could get ready to show off her dress.”  
  
Jessica was never innocent. However, Louise was curious about what those two girls had been doing in Jessica’s workshop. Given the minions had been bringing her coal and steel and Jessica had gone and bled Cattleya’s unicorn some more, they were obviously up to _something_.  
  
“Fine,” she said. “So. Questions.”  
  
“Right, right. So, Polasipolitan. They’re mostly going to want to talk about fashion…”  
  
Louise could not help but pigeonhole why Jessica might have chosen them. And then fill aforementioned pigeonhole with a pigeon. Nevertheless, she paid close attention.

* * *

“Now, these guys, they’re going to want to talk about spoons. No idea why. It’s traditional, but-” and whatever Jessica was about to say was interrupted by a knock at the door.  
  
“May I come in?” Henrietta asked. Only the very attentive would notice the slight quaver in her voice. “Oh… wait, no… um. Some of the… uh, minions want to play me a,” there was a muttering, “oh! A _fanfare_. That wasn’t what I heard!”  
  
Louise frowned. She wasn’t sure what Henrietta heard. She couldn’t even think of a word which sounded like ‘fanfare’. Unfair? Funfair? No, that wouldn’t make any sense. She ascribed it to Minions, and stopped thinking about it.  
  
The door opened, and several minions with various looted instruments swarmed through, led by Maxy. Louise wasn’t sure where he had acquired the conductor’s baton. It wasn’t even like they had met any conductors. Certainly, it almost certainly had not originally had a shiv strapped to one end.  
  
“Ahem!” Maxy said loudly. “A one! A two-er! A one an’ a two-er and,” he focussed on his fingers, “a three and more!”  
  
The best Louise could say was that the music did not sound _precisely_ like a tortured cat. Cats were probably higher pitched.  
  
And then Henrietta stepped through the door.  
  
Louise opened her mouth. Louise closed her mouth.  
  
She tried not to stare. And failed.  
  
Her old friend was dressed in… well, she didn’t really have the words for it. It was a black dress. A little black dress. Yes, little was the right word for it. Although it technically was of a decent length, the fact that it was slit to the mid-thigh somewhat ruined that. The neckline reached the navel, it was backless, and for good measure it also bared the shoulders, meaning that among the various offences the wearer was committing were included ones against gravity. The metal armoured gloves, boots, and single spikey pauldron that Henrietta was wearing were most definitely an afterthought. And wouldn’t do anything to protect her from attackers.  
  
“What are you wearing?” Louise managed, her throat feeling dry. She wasn’t sure how Henrietta wasn’t blushing, but her own face had decided to take up the slack. “Wait, no. Wrong question. _How_ are you wearing that?”  
  
“Oh, this?” Henrietta said, resting a hand on her chest. “It’s just a little number Jessica threw together from things she had lying around.”  
  
“Yeah, it was just a modest effort,” Jessica agreed. “And you lot can stop playing now,” she told the minions, who sulkily complied.  
  
Louise for her part felt that any modesty the wearer of that dress had was quite clearly false.  
  
“It was a test concept of something I planned for you, with some changes Henri suggested,” Jessica added, with just a hint of impish grin. “The best thing is that I didn’t have to add any fabric to adjust it! Although I did have to move some around.”  
  
“How is it even staying up?” Louise all-but wailed. She jabbed a finger at Jessica, trying not to stare at Henrietta. “What dark demonic sorcery are you using for that?”  
  
Jessica shrugged. “Quite a bit. I mean, there was _no_ way mere fabric would work for that. It’s woven with living shadow, and of course, Cattleya was really useful in getting me the unicorn hair and pegasus blood I needed for the underweave. Your point was?”  
  
Louise stared at Jessica. And then she stared at Henrietta and the dress, blushing. “It’s… it’s totally indecent! At the very least wear a mantle! Jessica, how could you be so… so impolitic as to make a princess wear that?”  
  
“I think she just say that the princess wear it,” Maxy contributed. “That how she do it.”  
  
Louise glared at him. “Minions, go stand in the corner and be quiet,” she demanded. “You’re not helping at all!”  
  
“I wanted to wear it,” Henrietta said, squaring her shoulders. “I’m the one who wanted the neckline. And for your information, Louise Francoise, it is positively _expected_ that a kidnapped prince or princess be forced into unsuitable clothing. Which means I can actually choose what I want to wear in the first time in… forever! And no one will blame me because I was forced into it by the vile forces of Evil!”  
  
“Yeah, that was totally not me,” Jessica said. “I mean, apart from in the implementation stage. That was totally me, because I’m brilliant and amazing and stuff. Henri is a pleasure to work with, you know that?”  
  
“You can’t blame me for making her wear that! What will people think?”  
  
“Uh, duh?” Jessica rolled her eyes. “That you’re a… like, totally wicked and awesome evil overlady with a great eye for fashion?”  
  
Louise desperately tried to change track. “It’s useless for protecting her! It doesn’t cover any of her torso, and… and it doesn’t cover her identity at all.”  
  
She was the target of two stares. “It’s _fashion,_ ” Jessica said plainly. “It’s not there to protect her. Remember, she’s our prisoner?”  
  
“Oh! No, Louise Francoise is quite right about the identity thing,” Henrietta said happily. “She also made me a helmet! Let me just…” she rummaged around in the cloth bag she was holding.  
  
“Again, another trial design for you,” Jessica explained. “I realised, ‘Hey, you know what? We should like, totally have themed helmets!’, and so I started making this. So we have a brand image.”  
  
“No one is getting branded!” Louise snapped.  
  
“I didn’t… oh, forget about it. But I’m totally going to further our brand, and make helmets like this for me and Catt. I already have a great design for her! It’ll have this great emergency spring-loaded quick-release catch so she can bite people!”  
  
“Don’t encourage her!”  
  
“Ta da!” Henrietta declared, her head now encased in metal. Henrietta’s helmet resembled Louise’s, somewhat. However, it was somewhat sleeker, with fewer spikes on top. What it lacked in top spikiness, however, it more than made up for with its elaborate stylised maw filled with iron teeth. “I am the Mouth of the Steel Maiden! I will make her proclamations! Which means you, Louise Francoise, don’t have to face really big crowds. You clearly recruited me to handle such things when you kidnapped the princess.”  
  
“Man, the teeth are such a great touch,” Jessica said in a self-congratulatory tone of voice.  
  
“But what’s my backstory?” Henrietta continued. “Hmm. Perhaps… perhaps I am a wicked Iberian sorceress, with the blood of demons flowing through my veins. No, no, I’m too pale to be Iberian. Hmm. Maybe… yes, I’m the representative of the secret conspiracy which works behind the throne of Tristain to manipulate things from the shadows!”  
  
Jessica stroked her chin. “But which one?” she asked. “We don’t want any of them denying that you’re a member.”  
  
“Well, who do you recommend?”  
  
Louise sunk her head into her hands and groaned. She was getting déjà vu. This was the all-too-familiar events of her childhood, where Princess Henrietta got a good idea and dragged everyone behind her, happening all over again. Only this time it was a bad idea.  
  
Wait, no. Thinking of it, considering how many times she had been kidnapped by the wicked Arch Doom Empress Henrietta of Evilermania and locked in the Pillow Fortress of Peril, until she was rescued by the brave Sir Henrietta of Goodristain and his ferocious wolfhound which just happened to look like a puppy, this was going pretty normally.  
  
What did her experience tell her? Well, it told her that she wasn’t going to beat Henrietta at this directly. She would have to use cunning, subtlety, and the sum of her social prowess to divert her.  
  
“You’re not wearing something that indecent and that’s that!” Louise said, crossing her arms. “I forbid it!”  
  
Thinking about it harder, Louise realised that perhaps her strengths did not lie in the field of social finesse.  
  
Henrietta squared her jaw. “Yes I am,” she countered.  
  
“No, you’re not,” Louise said.  
  
“Am so! I’m disguised as an evil servant of the dark overlady!”  
  
“Are not! I don’t want an evil servant dressed like that! It’s… disgraceful! Wear a mantle at least, to show you’re a mage!”  
  
Henrietta’s lips started to wobble. “You… you sound like my _mother_ ,” she spat.  
  
“I am not your mother!” Louise snapped. She paused. “I’m your kidnapper! You’re wearing a mantle with that and that’s final!”  
  
“But why?” Henrietta protested.  
  
“Well, for one,” Louise said triumphantly, “don’t you have that birthmark over your right shoulder blade? The star-shaped one?”  
  
Jessica checked. “Okay, she does have that,” she admitted. “Fuck. Yeah, Lou’s right, that’s a pretty obvious thing.”  
  
Louise knew the next step. “And of course,” she said to Jessica, trying to bring her on side, “I think it should be the same deep red as the surcoat of my armour. Because,” she tried to remember how Jessica had put it, “because of the branding?”  
  
“Yeah, that’s actually a pretty bad point,” Jessica said, nodding. “Yeah, with that nice strong red theme I can tie this in with yours and Catt’s, and… yeah, that works very…”  
  
And it was about then that five black-clad figures dropped down from the ceiling. This was a mysterious happening, especially since this meeting had been happening in one of the more low-ceilinged, comfortable rooms in the tower. There wasn’t really the space for five sinister assassins to hide. Louise caught a glimpse of a green-glowing oval flickering shut, and then her mind was on other things.  
  
“Death to the overlady!” one of the assassins yelled, swinging his wickedly sharp knife at Louise’s unprotected face. Sparks flew as she managed to catch the blade on the Gauntlet and gasp out a single word. The sparks were joined by lightning which coursed up the blade and into her attacker.  
  
Louise put her very pointy steel boot into his prone, smoking body, and then fried another one of the assassins with a fireball. “Minions!” she shouted. “Corner time is over! Kill!”  
  
“Yaaaaaay!”  
  
“Die foul demon!” yelled an attacker.  
  
“I no see demons!” one of the musician minions said, confusion in its voice.  
  
“Duh. Forgemistress,” Maxy said, running his conductor’s-shiv into the kidneys of the one advancing on Jessica. The man screamed like a stuck and Maxy worked the blade up. “I is thinking he got the point,” he said with a tone of profound smugness.  
  
“Lou! Help!” Jessica called out. She was holding chair and was trying to fend off her knife-wielding assailant, but the upholstery was getting very tattered and the cushion was bleeding fluff. “He’s got a holy weapon! Oh, thank badness,” she said, eyes widening in relief as she stared over the man’s shoulder.  
  
The assassin wasn’t foolish enough to fall for that old trick, and so got jumped by three minions. And to add insult and minor injury to injury, while he was flailing around trying to dislodge the minions Jessica hit him over the head with the chair.  
  
Louise looked around wildly. Henrietta had her wand out and was looking around wildly, her heavy metal helmet grating. Jessica was beating on the downed man with her chair, while there were other three attackers down, dead or dying. But where was the last one?  
  
Behind her! He had a longer blade in one hand and a wand in the other. Louise hurled a fireball at him, but a jet of air deflected the fire and set the table ablaze. Louise began to chant a lightning spell, and then he moved. He wasn’t heading for her, she realised, as he flipped over her half-prepared lightning and landed behind her.  
  
“In nomine vacui!” he cried out. “Die, witch!”  
  
Louise watched helplessly, her world moving in slow motion, as the knife descended towards Henrietta’s lamentably unprotected chest. She saw her friend’s lips moving, trying desperately to get another spell out, but her water chants all too far too l-  
  
And then the assassin exploded in a cloud of blood.  
  
It went everywhere.  
  
For a brief moment, there was silence, save for the dripping. Slowly, Henrietta took off her blood-covered helmet, and let it fall to the ground. Its clank broke the hush.  
  
Jessica let out a high-pitched shriek. “Why does this keep on happening?” she yelled, totally painted red. “First spiders, then assassins! Find cleaner ways to kill people!”  
  
“Gnarl!” Louise snapped, balling her hands into fists. “Get in here!”  
  
“Who the… the… the blasted wretched dratted hell were they?” Henrietta asked, before blushing. It was not immediately perceptible that she was doing so, because she was painted red with gore. “Pardon my Romalian, please,” she added.  
  
“It’s down my neck! It’s warm and it’s trickling and… yuck yuck yuck. Urgh! You’d have to be a real sicko to bathe in blood!” Jessica moaned, and was ignored. “And my mouth was open!”  
  
“Forget who they were! What was that?” Louise retorted, once she had the blood out of her eyes. It really stung. She supposed it made sense, because blood was salty, but understanding that didn’t make it any less unpleasant.  
  
Henrietta coughed. “Royal magic,” she said in a tiny voice. Behind them, Jessica started being sick.  
  
Louise folded her arms. “Really?” she asked, tapping her foot. “Because to me, that looked remarkably like blood magic. Normal water magic only really heals. It doesn’t make people explode like that.”  
  
Henrietta gasped. “Louise Françoise,” she said, “what a thing to imply! That was royal water magic!”  
  
“Henrietta,” Louise said flatly, “you made someone explode. Into a cloud of blood mist.”  
  
“Blood is _mostly_ water,” Henrietta objected. “In fact, it’s actually much more water than, for example, strong alcoholic spirits. And for your information, that _was_ actually royal magic! I don’t know any blood magic! That was just… just a normal spell you’d use to make mist from… w-w-water!”  
  
“Blood mist,” Louise said. She felt it was quite important to be clear about that.  
  
“Normal mist which just _happened_ to be made of blood,” Henrietta countered. “I just used certain royal things I learned to cast it with a single syllable and make it more powerful!” She was shaking, Louise realised. She hadn’t noticed it, probably because she’d flooded with adrenaline, but Henrietta was sagging, barely able to stand upright. “I don’t know blood magic and… and now I’m covered in it and… and… and…” she took a deep breath. “I need a bath. I don’t feel clean.”  
  
“Oh, Henrietta,” Louise said more warmly as she moved to support her. “I am sorry for shouting at you. I just thought…”  
  
“I’ve never done this before,” Henrietta said weakly, over the sound of Jessica being sick again. “Killed someone, I mean. Is… there always so much blood?”  
  
Well, no, Louise didn’t say. “I felt sick the first time I hit someone with a fireball,” she said out loud. “Well, a real person. Not a vampire. I just felt sick then because I nearly died. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”  
  
“Ah!” Gnarl said, standing in the doorway. “Your wickedness, what happened?”  
  
“Assassins,” Louise said tersely. “Speaking Romalian, too, and trying to kill the ‘overlady’. They were going for Henrietta. I think it was because she was wearing the helmet. They’re all dead now.”  
  
Maxy shook himself dry. “Not quite!” he said happily. “This one, he are still breathing. Ish. He no have kidneys left, though.”  
  
“I see,” Gnarl said, stroking his goatee. “We will need to find out how he got in. I will carry out some investigations, I believe.”  
  
“There was some kind of portal or rift,” Louise said tersely.  
  
“Very interesting,” Gnarl said. “Very few magics could do that without great power. Yes, great power indeed.” He clapped his hands. “Move the prisoner to the jail,” he ordered the minions. “Do not let him die yet.” He nodded to Louise. “I will try my upmost to find out who he was working for,” he said.  
  
“Do that,” Louise said. Henrietta was clinging onto her. “For now, I need to go clean up.” She squared her jaw. “Gnarl, organise a sweep of the tower to make sure no other attackers have concealed themselves. I will take a group and clear the baths myself. Because if they have messed with the hot-water supply, then their fates will be dire indeed.”  
  
“Yes,” Jessica said darkly, wiping her mouth. “Very dire. Urgh. And it’s in my ears.”  
  
“As you wish.”  
  
Louise pulled Henrietta into a close hug, and let her shake. “And perhaps now do you see why more clothing might be a good idea?” she asked softly. “If you’re going to help me, people are going to try to kill you.”  
  
“Mmm,” her friend mumbled.  
  
She let Henrietta cling to her. This felt sort of nice. She could get used to this feeling. Vindication was so sweet.  
  
Cattleya poked her head through the door. “I’m sorry, I just happened to be passing by and I smelt something unbelievably tast- my goodness! Louise, assassins tried to kill you and you didn’t tell me? I’m hurt! I could have helped! I know you’re upset with me, but it was jolly silly to…”  
  
“I am _not in the mood,_ ” Louise snapped, pulling Henrietta by the hand as she stormed out. She whirled. “And I still have these stupid talks to journaleers to do next Voidsday and Emperor Lee is going to try to kill me and…” she trailed away.  
  
And smiled a dreadful blood-soaked smile. “Oh, goodness, goodness me,” she said, managing to put previously unprecedented levels of menace in that innocuous phrase.  
  
“You have orders, your wickedness?” Gnarl asked, tilting his head.  
  
“Not yet,” she said. “I’m going to think more in the bath. But Gnarl, find out where more goblin tribes are. I may well need some more minions at short notice.”


	37. A Date With Destiny 7-4

“ _A stable and happy marriage should be one between equals. Power disparities doom love. I would never have married a man who could not wipe out a company of Germanian brigands or a small army of goblins, and I most certainly expect my daughters to end up with men similarly suited to them. Well, I do not expect Cattleya to end up with a man – because of her illness of course, nothing more, no other reason – but if she had not fallen ill, I would have imposed the same criteria upon her as Eleanore and Louise._ ”  
  
– Karina de la Vallière

* * *

“Soooo,” Igni said, drawing out the word. The five minions, who were by right of shiniest loot and brute force broadly accepted as the senior non-Gnarl minions around, stood around, overseeing the serving efforts. All five of them had acquired top hats, which they were wearing on top of their normal headgear. Fettid, as befitted her alleged status as a lady of grace and style, was wearing a bonnet on top of the top hat on top of her bonnet. “I no is getting what is going on with the planning thingie.”  
  
“It are simples,” Maxy said happily. “The overlady and the forgemistress and the henchess are showing off the clothing and talking to the hornies what do the writing down of the wordies and the overlady is going ‘mwhahaha I am so dangerous’ and then the writey hornies are writing down all of that.”  
  
The other minions shuddered at the mention of so many words, even at one step removed.  
  
“Gnarl does the angry word from the Los Diablos Times every day,” Scyl contributed. “He say he miss it a lot when vampy lock him in cage.”  
  
“I be angry if I read so many wordies,” Maggat said firmly. “But Maxy are right. Overlady are doing her talky thing, and then when she do it, we go and give booze what they no is needing to pay for to the writey hornies. Then once that all that is happened, we is making sure that henchess and foremistress are safe while she go watch thingie with the boss-man of far away place.”  
  
“It are so romantic,” Maxy said with a great sigh. “She have power, he have power, they do thing that leads to kissy kissy and then in long run evil babies.”  
  
Igni shook his head. “I no is believing you,” he said. “You is trying to explain where human babies come from before, but it no is making much sense. Humans can no make minions without a hive. I no think that they can make a new human without human hive.”  
  
“It are like sheepies, only with humies instead of sheepies,” Scyl said dreamily.  
  
“That no make sense,” Igni said. “Humies no have horns. Unless they are part horny, like forgemistress, and she have them only when she get angry.”  
  
“I think we is getting distracted,” Maggat said. “Gnarl tell us that we is meant to make sure that the writey horney are very drunk and happy, so they is writing wicked things ‘bout overlady because they think if they do that, they get more free drinkies.”  
  
There was a moment of realisation, as they managed to grasp the sheer genius of the plan of the overlady – aided of course by Gnarl – and the role they had to play in it.  
  
“Overlady so smart,” Igni said.  
  
“I be using my fem-in-ine wile to make sure they is happy and drinky much,” Fettid said.  
  
“While what?”Maxy asked.  
  
“I not sure,” Fettid admitted. “While stabbity happens, prob’bly.”  
  
Maggat cuffed her across the back of the head. “No! Overlady very firm about that. We no is meant to kill the writey hornies, even by accident or if we fall and then oops knifey go in back of writey horny who just happen to have a lot of money on them and so we have to loot all their shineys to help save their life. Overlady very firm that we no is allowed to do that.”  
  
“Overlady are evils,” Fettid said sadly.  
  
She was the subject of three minionly stares – Scyl being distracted by a fly. “Well, duh,” Igni said. “That are the point of overlady.”  
  
“Oh yeah.”

* * *

The Voice of the Steel Maiden rapped her knuckles on the desk. “And I believe that we have time for one last question for the overlady,” she said, leaning forwards. “Only the truly unworthy shall be chosen for this.”  
  
Louise sitting on a raised chair slightly behind Henrietta was feeling vaguely mortified by the whole set-up. It just didn’t feel right to be… well, she would call it ‘holding court’, only the demons weren’t courtiers, with Henrietta asking as her seneschal. She was very glad that her helmet covered almost all her face, because she was blushing. What if she was punished by God for putting herself above a member of the royal family? Oh, and the whole evil overlady thing, too, but that didn’t count because she was doing it for a good cause.  
  
Of course, she was also feeling more than a little embarrassed by how much effort Henrietta was putting into this whole pretence. Just yesterday she had caught her friend spending nearly ten minutes practicing a variety of evil laughs into the mirror. And then she had asked Louise how she managed to get such a good evil laugh, and Louise had been forced to deny that she had an evil laugh and then Jessica had walked in and started snickering in a very annoying way.  
  
Louise mentally sighed. She did wish she could stay as calm in front of a crowd as Henrietta was managing, though. Somehow she was managing to sound impeccably regal and commanding when she was wearing far less than was decent. And that was with that additional clothing that Louise had forced on her, though the witty and delicate method of shouting at Jessica until she added an armoured breastplate to the ensemble. Louise felt that there was still rather too much ‘breast’ and not enough ‘plate’ in the navel-baring alleged piece of protection, but she would take what victories she could.  
  
At least this was the last question. She focussed on the fortunate demon, a cyclopean creature from the journal known as the _Obscured Orb_.  
  
“So, has anything amusing ever happened to you in connection with a spoon?” the journaleer asked, his single oversized eye unblinking.  
  
Louise stared blankly back. Her mind was whirring as she tried to see if there was any trap in that question. Any secretly hidden squirming trick which would make everything fall apart if she answered. She couldn’t think of anything, but that might just have meant that it was very well hidden. In the end, she decided to play it safe. “No,” she said.  
  
Wait. Did that mean they would conclude that she was boring? Had she just answered wrong?  
  
The demon’s face fell. “Oh,” he said, turning pale. “Oh no.” Eye darting around, he tried to make a run for it, but before he got more than a few paces a vast burning eyeball appeared and burned him to a crisp.  
  
“I… I would like thank you all for you attendance and… and hope that you were all satisfied,” Henrietta said faintly, doing an admirable job of controlling the tremor in her voice “And… uh…”  
  
“Drinks are provided in the entry hall,” Jessica interjected.  
  
There was a clattering of chairs as the journaleers stampeded for the free alcohol. Louise just hoped that the minions clad in stolen butlerial fashion had not got bored during the questions and drunk all the booze already.  
  
Her eyes drifted back to the greasy stain on the floor where the journaleer had died. “I didn’t expect that,” she said, feeling a little dizzy.  
  
“What… what happened to him?” Henrietta asked in a hushed tone.  
  
“Oh, the editor of that thing is pretty harsh,” Jessica said casually. “Fires his staff for the slightest failure.”  
  
“So it was my fault?” Louise whispered.  
  
“Nah. All his fault for working for that thing. He knew what he was getting into.” Jessica clapped her hands together. “And the two of you did great! Like, wow!”  
  
Henrietta slumped forwards, her head resting on her forearms. “I was so nervous! I mean, I’d read all those etiquette manuals you got me and of course any proper princess knows how to address the infernal masses…”  
  
“Wait, what?” Louise asked.  
  
Henrietta twisted in her seat. “Well, of course,” she said. “I mean, the infernal might be a pernicious force of wickedness working to undo all good in the world, but there is such thing as _manners_. Not least because being rude to an infernal emissary is liable to get you invaded by a horde of wingéd demons or something.”  
  
“It’s like a reprimand for rudeness,” Jessica said brightly.  
  
“I see,” Louise said.  
  
“Yes, well, I’d read the theory, but it was totally different in practice! I didn’t expect the way they made all those sketches of us, either.” Henrietta giggled. “I bet my mother would have _kittens_ if she saw that! Ah ha ha ha ha.”  
  
Jessica shook her head. “Still don’t have the laugh down, Voxi.”  
  
“Drat.”  
  
For her part, Louise had not exactly been comfortable with the sketches. Not least because the ones doing them were apparently paying more attention to Henrietta than her. They were meant to be interested in her, not her mysterious new henchwoman! Just because Henrietta was taller than her and more beautiful and bustier and… Louise sighed. It wasn’t fair. Dratted bloodlines which had apparently dictated that she would be delicate and petite and… short. And, well. Not exactly curvy.  
  
“We still have some time before I have to meet with Emperor Lee,” Louise said, to try to shift the topic. “So I was thinking that we could go and maybe I could get some more occult tomes and…”  
  
Jessica wagged her finger at her. “No,” she told Louise firmly. “We don’t have time for that! I need to do your hair again and you’ve smudged your lip paint and I need to check your armour again and… oh, there’s no time for things like casual shopping! Especially for boring tomes and scrolls! You need to look perfect!” She grabbed Louise by the arm. “Come on!”  
  
“… but books,” Louise said weakly, as she was pulled away. “And my hair is covered by my helmet.”  
  
“Not the point!”

* * *

In Louise’s quite firm and solid opinion, Jessica was the worst maid ever. She was touching up the armour in the ladies toilets of where Louise would be meeting the emperor. And Louise wasn’t enjoying it. Some of that may have been due to the fact that Jessica wasn’t a maid – and was in fact a demon princess – but she was still very bad at helping Louise get dressed in the way she liked to do it. Which was to say, a way which left her feeling like she had some control over her life.  
  
Jessica disagreed that Louise had any control over her own life, at least with regards to things like the clothes she wore and how her surcoat sat, which was not a nice feeling. And jolly presumptuous! Who was the evil overlady around here, anyway?  
  
Not that she was evil, of course.  
  
“And… done!”  
  
Henrietta smiled. “Oh, you look impressively evil!” she said. “He’ll be very impressed, I think!”  
  
“I should hope so,” Jessica said. “Make sure if any journaleers see you, they get sketches of you. I want to see you in the gossip pages.”  
  
Louise blushed bright red. “I’m not sure that’s really proper,” she managed. “This… well, for one, he’s… it’s… I hardly know him! And…”  
  
“It’s probably a good idea that the helmet hides the blush,” Jessica observed.  
  
“Really? It’s adorable,” Henrietta said.  
  
Louise worked her mouth soundlessly. Henrietta thought she was adorable? The blush intensified.  
  
“Yes, but not the kind of thing which gets you respect from a hot young ex-evil-vizier who’s now the emperor of Cathay,” Jessica said. “Get _in_ there.”  
  
“No ‘in’ will be ‘got’,” Louise said in her most haughty manner, trying to regain control of the conversation. “We are merely going to see a performance together. Nothing more.”  
  
“Aww, come on. You should at least try to get a free meal out of him. From some fancy restaurant, too. He’s an emperor, right? He should be good for… like, well, basically anywhere.”  
  
“This topic of conversation is over,” Louise said, crossing her arms with a grating of demonic steel. “Full stop.”  
  
“Urgh, fine. Okay, so this is it,” Jessica hissed to Louise, as they left the toilets and returned to the lavish and blood-red carpeted foyer, where the emperor would be meeting Louise. “Remember what I told you. Together, you’re going to the swevenkino. You have to look like you’re used to it, and whatever you do, don’t try and interfere with what’s happening on stage. Remember, it’s not real.” She paused. “Well, it’s real, but it’s not real-real.”  
  
“Yes, yes,” Louise retorted. “You said that already. It might look like a play, but it’s demonic magic breaking into a mortal’s dreams and showing them to the audience.”  
  
“Yes! Exactly! And there’s a protective barrier up in front of the stage, so don’t try to run away if it looks like something is heading straight towards the screen! Even if it’s a really scary monster. The magic keeps the things trapped inside the dream, so there is one-hundred-percent totally safe no risk ever of the thing getting out and maybe eating everyone in the swevenkino. Trust me.”  
  
Louise didn’t trust her. No one giving that much reassurance could ever be trustworthy. Especially when the reassurance was that specific and detailed.  
  
“H… I mean, your Voice and me’ll be going shopping and just hanging out. We’ll have a bunch of minions with us, and we’ll just be keeping an eye out for you-know-what. And, oh yeah, I’ve got the spectacles prepared,” Jessica said, passing her a case. Louise took them, examining the eyeglasses. “Put them on, and the tiny demon living in them will write the translation down, which you can then read.”  
  
Louise took them dubiously and put them on, removing her helmet to do so. “So what do they do?” she asked. “Do they tell me what he’s saying? Won’t it be hard to hear what they say and what he’s saying at the same time?”  
  
“Nah,” Jessica said, flicking her hair. “Magical text appears on the glasses, right at the bottom. And it’s even colour-coded by speaking. Subtitling is _far_ better than dubbing.”  
  
“Well, if you say so,” Louise said.  
  
“I mean, dubs are totally inauthentic and most demons can’t get the voices right at all. You totally get far more of the real experience by using subtitling.”  
  
“I don’t really care,” Louise said. “I’m just going to have to get used to wearing glasses to read what someone says at the same time as they talk.”  
  
“Well, you should care! You… yeah, okay, not the time. But look! Just check they’re working, at least for the Dark Tongue.” Jessica coughed. “Je’near-eek Ævuul charn’teengh,” she said, her voice taking on a monstrous timbre.  
  
The words _Generic evil chanting_ appeared on the interior of the glasses.  
  
“… did you just say ‘Generic evil chanting’?” Louise asked. “And… wait, I sort of understood that anyway.”  
  
Jessica broke out into a grin. “Wicked. They’re working. And yeah, well, you are, you know, horrifically Evil, so that’s why you can probably understand the Dark Tongue even without learning it. But the same doesn’t apply for Cathayan. Now, the demons in the glasses have no imagination so they won’t lie to you, even if they might be a bit clunky in how they translate things. Oh, and don’t worry, I chose a breed which doesn’t eat eyeballs! Isn’t it great!”  
  
“… wait, what?”  
  
Jessica rushed off, holding Henrietta’s hand. “Okay, see you!”  
  
“What was that about eyeball eating demons?”  
  
“Don’t worry about it!” Jessica said cheerfully, giving her a thumbs up and winking. “Me and Voxi,” she pointed at Henrietta, “will just go and do our super special top secret uber mission thing, right? Laters!”  
  
“I…” Louise sighed in exasperation. How did she get talked into these things? Why was she going to see a performance with a murderous evil – and admittedly sort of handsome and exceptionally rich – emperor from a far-off land who had said that she was ‘not objectively suboptimal’? How on earth had her life turned out in a way that she was currently standing around in the Abyss, waiting to meet with a wicked tyrant who seemed to be courting her? She was a good girl! Good girls didn’t become involved with evil foreigners who had hordes of dragon-riders serving them!  
  
Louise took a deep breath and tried to reassure herself. At least Emperor Lee, unlike Viscount Wardes, was _obviously_ evil… not that Wardes wasn’t the most horrible despicable terrible wretched stupid foul unclean dog ever to disgrace the world with his footsteps and where had she been going with this? Yes! She was _expecting_ that Emperor Lee would try to murder her at some point, and so it wouldn’t come as a surprise.  
  
Maggat poked his head out of a ventilation duct. “We is all waiting for your orders so we can go ‘gaargh’ and do the jumping out and the looting and pillaging if you is wanting us to kill the emperor,” he added. “Fettid and the rest is following the forgemistress and the henchess like you is telling us to. It are most cunning.”  
  
“Shut up and get back in the pipe,” Louise hissed.  
  
Oh, and of course, she had half a horde of evil foul smelling goblins hiding in the ventilation system just waiting for her orders. That did wonders for boosting a girl’s confidence. If Lee attempted to do anything improper, like sacrificing her to some evil foreign god, she’d set the minions on him with the promise that they could keep any headgear or shiny objects he had on him.  
  
It was a low, wretched, despicable blow, and Louise was rather proud of it.  
  
And then she saw him. There was a commotion going on outside the foyer, but the protesters holding up signs complaining about dragon slavery and Cathay’s human rights’ record – apparently they allowed far too many of them, whatever ‘human rights’ were – were being beaten up by the demonic police. She had a clear line of sight to the emperor. He was dressed in his usual black armour, although he had added a black cape to it, stuck on some black spikes, and was wearing a surcoat made of black dragon scales. It made him look even paler. He was also wearing glasses, which caught the light and made his eyes hard to see.  
  
Louise didn’t consider throwing a lightning bolt at him and ridding the world of a great evil. Not seriously, anyway. It wouldn’t do anything considering he was probably even more layered in protective magic than her. And it would be rude.  
  
She realised he was right in front of her, and that she was staring.  
  
Emperor Lee said something in Cathayan. “Greetings. You look attractively armoured,” her glasses told her.  
  
Louise blushed. “Thank you,” she said. “You are also wearing… um, nice armour. And you look nice.” She saw him tilt his head, and from the flickering of his eyes he was reading his own translation off his glasses.  
  
At least she wouldn’t have to deal with having a translator around getting in the way. But on the other hand, now she would have to talk to him at length.  
  
What if he was only attracted to her armour? That would very strange, but then again, pretty much all the overlords who weren’t her were as crazy as a bat, Louise thought in a spasm of worry. After all, he’d never seen any of her body, apart from a tiny bit around her mouth. And yes, she did apparently have a ‘cute’ chin, if Jessica was to be trusted (she wasn’t), but he didn’t even know what she looked like. What would he say if he ever saw her in the flesh?  
  
Oh, wait, he’d probably say something like ‘No! The daughter of the Karin is after me! I will slay her and become famous for it!’. Louise balled her hands into fists behind her back. It was hard work being an overlady when your mother was possibly the most famous hero in all of Halkeginia, and who had apparently ruined their economies by killing so many foes of righteousness. Which really was flattering and rather amazing, but also somewhat annoying.  
  
There was an awkward silence.  
  
“It will be starting soon,” he said, breaking the silence.  
  
“Um. Yes, it will,” Louise said, trying to think of something to say. “Um,” she added, glancing down at her armoured boots. “Have you been to the swevenkino before?”  
  
“I have not, no,” came the response. “Apparently it is all the madness in the Abyss, according to my spies.”  
  
“Well.” Louise swallowed, and tried not to bite her lip. “Let’s go, then.”

* * *

Jessica spread her arms wide, and gave a whoop of joy, spinning around on the spot. Her expansive gesture took in the great towering black basalt towers of Los Diablos, the iron horses milling around on the streets exhaling smoke, and the smog-browned sky.  
  
“Isn’t this great?” Jessica said enthusiastically. “We get to go chill in Los Diablos and we can go around the bargain shops and… oooh! I wonder if Ia’amems has any more of the obsidian in stock! I have the most awesome plans if I can get my hands on some more!”  
  
“Chilling would sound very nice indeed,” Henrietta said, fanning herself while she looked nervously at the demonic beasts galloping by on the roads. They were going dreadfully fast. “It is almost intolerably hot. And smoky.”  
  
“Yeah, Los Diablos gets like this,” Jessica said with a shrug. “It’s hot anyway, and then there’s all the fumes from the iron horses and the factories and, you know, the magma.” She grinned. “Ice cream time!”  
  
“You scream time? Um, what does that mean? How is time something you can scream?”  
  
“I said ‘ice cream’, not ‘I scream’.”  
  
“Eyes cream? I’m not sure I want to eat eyes…” Henrietta said dubiously. “In fact, I really don’t.”  
  
Jessica shook her head sadly. “Sister, you have _so much to learn._ ”  
  
“I’m not your sister. I’m a distant cousin several times removed,” Henrietta objected.  
  
Jessica ignored her.  
  
“For that matter,” Henrietta said, “this breastplate is rather hot and heavy. Do I really have to wear it?”  
  
“’Fraid so,” Jessica said. “If you don’t, you can just bet that the overlady has told the minions to watch for if you take it off. Right?” she asked the nearest minion.  
  
Fettid cleared her throat. “I no is answering that question,” she said. “Overlady tell me not to answer askies about orders to be tattletale.”  
  
“See?” Jessica said, spreading her hands. “She’s so mean sometimes. Far too stuck-up. I’m being repressed.” She tilted her head, as a thought struck her. “Actually, you know, that’d explain a lot. She’s so evil, she even represses herself because she is… like, _so_ repressed.” She grinned. “The emperor will be pretty lucky if he gets through that wall of repression. Something tells me he won’t be getting lucky tonight. Anyway! Ice cream!”  
  
Jessica sauntered up to a colossal three-headed demon, who wept frozen tears from his six eyes. He was buried up to his chest in ice, and he strained constantly to escape, the beating of his six wings creating a pleasant cooling breeze. He momentarily ceased his nearly ceaseless attempts to escape to take Jessica’s money and provide her with two cones, before returning to his doomed efforts.  
  
“This is a Ninthy-Ninth,” Jessica said, passing Henrietta an ice cream. “It’s made from milk from demonic cows and… oh yeah, do you know, normal cows aren’t actually demonic despite the fact that they have horns and hooves? I was, like, so totally shocked when I found that out. It was almost as bad as it would be to find that goats aren’t demons working to overthrow the world of man.”  
  
“Um,” Heniretta said, “… they’re not. They’re… goats.” She warily licked her ice cream, lips pursing as she prepared to spit it out if necessary.  
  
Jessica shook her head sadly. “No, silly,” she said, “that’s just what they _want_ you to think.”  
  
“They’re goats.”  
  
“Nah.” Jessica devoured her ice cream in a single bite, with a second one to consume the cone, and looked around. “Okay, I booked a nice restaurant for dinner, but what else do you want to do?”  
  
Henrietta took a deep breath, and started coughing from the fumes. “What kind of food?” she asked, once she had got her hacking under control.  
  
“Uh, pizza. It’s a proper hellish food.”  
  
“Pizza is a Romalian dish,” Henrietta pointed out. “I’ve had it before.”  
  
“This is Romalian-Infernal pizza,” Jessica corrected her. “An immigrant dish. From damned Romalians enslaved to work in the kitchens of the lords of the Abyss. I’ve had ‘proper’ Romalian pizza. They make the crust way too thin, and there’s not enough cheese. You’ve gotta try a real Infernal pizza. But yeah, what do you want to do before that?”  
  
“Loot!” contributed a minion.  
  
“Maim!”  
  
“Burn!”  
  
“Kill!”  
  
“Shut up,” Jessica said casually. “Voxi?” she asked the Voice of the Overlady.  
  
“I honestly don’t know,” Henrietta said. “I mean, there was some mention of occult tomes, so I suppose we could get them for her and…”  
  
“You’re no fun,” Jessica said, pouting.  
  
“You must understand,” Henrietta said, her voice dropping, “I have spent almost a year locked in a small room, and before that… well, my life was rather controlled by others. And I have never been to the Abyss before, and,” she gestured around her, “it is exceptionally strange. I don’t _know_ what I want to do here. But L… the overlady did mention evil tomes, and I do owe her.” She scuffed her boots against the paving slabs. “And I have spent my entire life being warned about the dangers of forbidden lore, so… so I jolly well think I should get to see what all the fuss is about!”  
  
“Fine! We’ll do some book things! And then?” Jessica said. “We’re young, we’re single, we’re princesses. Let’s hit the town!”  
  
“Maybe I could get an evil tattoo,” Henrietta said wistfully.

* * *

Louise tried not to sigh audibly. She was sitting in a dark room, watching things within the dreams of a man moving behind a great glass window - which in itself was a sign of the decadence of demons. Not just the fact that they would spend so much on such a colossal piece of glass, though there was that. And not just because they were controlling the dreams of a mortal man as entertainment, which was of course wicked and dreadful and detestable.  
  
No, it was the fact that the events happening in the dreams of the nightmare-wracked mortal were so _dull_. And the dialogue was so bad. Louise had seen far, far better plays in her time. And she had been shushed by a demon when she had tried to talk to Emperor Lee. She’d tried to see if he was as bored as she was, but she couldn’t read his expression.  
  
She shifted uncomfortably, and tried to settle her head in a position that she could close her eyes. But no, she shouldn’t do that. She might offend the emperor. And that wouldn’t be proper. He hadn’t tried to kill or even harm her once so far. She didn’t want him to start.  
  
But this swevenkino was so _bad_. In the good language sense of the word. And long.

* * *

Henrietta and Jessica had a most enjoyable afternoon. Only one murderous assassin tried to kill them, and they were clearly a complete amateur and thus got swarmed by minions.  
  
“I am liking the knifey,” Fettid said cheerfully, secreting the weapon somewhere on her person while some of the younger minions started a kickabout with the head. “Is you sure we is not allowed in the eating place?”  
  
Jessica pointed mutely at the sign which said “No Minions and Shadow People”, and also had various pictorial depictions to account for the near species-wide illiteracy. And large demons at the entrance to stop them when they tried to get in anyway.  
  
Maxy coughed. “We is under-standing,” he said, winking in a completely unsubtle way. “We promises on our bestest honour that we no is going to climb up the bins and get into the kitchens that way.” He pulled out his lute. “And if we is not let in, we is just going to have to busk outside.”  
  
For some reason, this statement produced a considerable amount of alarm in the proprietors, and the minions were quickly let into the underlings section which any high-class restaurant in the Abyss had as a matter of course.  
  
“I’ve never been to a hellish restaurant before,” Henrietta whispered, looking around. There were many small tables around the interior, and a faint smell of freshly baked bread. Or possibly bread-smelling damned soul. “Or many restaurants at all, to be quite honest. What’s the protocol?”  
  
Jessica raised a finger. “Leave it to me,” she said smugly. “Okaaaaaaaay,” she told the waiter, “we’ll both be having the dinner menu, and… wait,” she twisted to stare at the specials board. “No, we will be having the dinner menu. Uh… oh, you only have two starters at the moment? One of each then, since we’ll be sharing. The pizza for the main, no coelacanth on mine... you like fish, Voxi? ‘Kay, she’ll have the fish on it. And a bottle of the house red to share. Just red grape, though. No extras.”  
  
“Certainly,” the waiter said. “Will there be anything else?”  
  
“Not at the moment, but… oh, do you still have the rosemary breadsticks?”  
  
“Indeed, ma’am.”  
  
“Then we’ll have some of them before the food arrives.”  
  
“Certainly, ma’am.”  
  
“The dinner menu here is great,” Jessica said confidently. “This place caters a lot to cultists and the like, so – like I said – there’s a bunch of Infernal versions of normal foods and…”  
  
“Oh my.” A tall, strawberry blonde demoness stood behind Henrietta. “Fancy seeing you here.”  
  
“Izah’belya,” Jessica said, glowering.  
  
“J’eszika,” her cousin said, her eyebrows raised. She was wearing a dress which would not have looked out of place at a Tristainian ball, if it had not been for the fact that it was apparently made of tiny obsidian scales. Ribbons of scarlet fire burned in her hair, and were tied around her rams’ horns. “Well, well. Fancy seeing you here. I wouldn’t have expected that.” She flicked her strawberry-blonde hair. “I do _so_ hope you can afford this place. I’d just _hate_ for you to be inconvenienced by such a modest expenditure.”  
  
“I’m fine,” Jessica said back acidly. “Oh, I think it’s my things which have been on the front page of the journals, not yours. I’m the one who played a major role in kidnapping Princess Henrietta of Tristain out of the hands of good!”  
  
“Which she did very well,” Heniretta contributed loyally.  
  
“Who is this?” Izah’belya asked. “You seem to have put her in one of your graceless iron contraptions, and she doesn’t even have the admittedly-revolutionary _femme fere_ of your overlady.”  
  
“She’s a colleague,” Jessica retorted. “And for your information, some of us appreciate refinements of classical schools, thank you very much! Just because you have your thing for East-West fusions doesn’t mean everyone has to go tromping around in stupid glass-crystal things!”  
  
“But it looks so good on me,” Izah’belya said, smirking. “Hmm,” she said, taking Henrietta in. “I have to say, the whole femme fere thing does look pretty good when you have someone who looks like her. Personally, I’d have made the breastplate out of… maybe some red crystal? The translucency would be quite alluring without compromising the protection. At least you didn’t fall for the old regressive fallacy of the unarmoured torso. Well-cut armour plays off the lines of the body rather more.”  
  
“Yes, that’s what I thought,” Jessica lied. “The armour was always an integral part of the outfit. Izah’belya, this is the Voice of the Steel Maiden.” She snorted. “’Course, you seem to be here all alone. What, did you get stood up?”  
  
“Oh, no,” Izah’belya, said smirking. “I did have something arranged, but I’m afraid Tzeragh had to cancel. A mysterious fire mysteriously set fire to one of her warehouses, mysteriously. And I didn’t feel like cancelling my reservation, so I thought I’d see if I could meet someone cute here.” She paused. “Sadly, that doesn’t seem to have worked. I met you instead.”  
  
“Fuck you.”  
  
“Oh my,” Izah’belya said. “Such coarseness. And I’m not interested in that, dear cousin.”  
  
“You’re acting like a surface worlder,” Jessica snapped at her. “Have you been spending a lot of time up there, or has Klaus been rubbing off on you?”  
  
“Klaus?” Izah’belya asked, her eyebrows fluting up. “Oh, I grew bored of him long ago. He was only in it for the investiture of abyssal power, anyway. And he had a _very_ unhealthy attitude towards women. Do you know, he tried to bind me? So many cultists are sad, pathetic little people who appear to have gone into demonology to meet women. Really, J’ez, you should be thanking me for freeing you from someone so… so _contemptible_.”  
  
“You stole him! We were dating!”  
  
“J’ez, I don’t know what you thought you were doing, but he wasn’t into that. Especially with your… issue.”  
  
Jessica turned red, horns forcing their way from her forehead. “Don’t you dare!” she snapped.  
  
“And there you go,” Izah’belya said casually. “And…” she frowned, squinting at Henrietta. “I’m sorry, but is your companion tearing up? That’s not the usual reaction when you start to… ah. True love?”  
  
“Dead true love,” Jessica agreed, taking a deep breath. She tried to calm herself down. “Voxi, this is Izah’belya. My cousin, on my dad’s side. Total bitch. Also rather smarter than most of my other cousins, which she mostly uses for being a bitch. And has a thing for avarice rather than lust.”  
  
“You charmer, you,” Izah’belya said, smiling as she ran a hand over one of her ram’s horns. “And here I thought you didn’t like me.”  
  
“I _don’t_ like you.” Jessica paused. “You’re not going to go away until I ask if you want to have dinner, are you?” she asked.  
  
“You do owe me. Remember? I picked up the tab after the Montregal show.”  
  
Jessica threw her hands up. “Fine!”

* * *

Louise and the emperor stepped out of the building, into the heat of the abyssal summer. He still hadn’t tried to kill her. That meant she was doing a good job.  
  
Louise tried to think of a way to diplomatically tell her opinion of the swevenkino. “It… was certainly unusual,” she tried.  
  
“I think it was terrible,” Lee said.  
  
Louise paled. Drat. Was he using evil language? She didn’t know!  
  
“The plot was bad, the characters were dire, and the script was just atrocious.”  
  
That didn’t help at all.  
  
“Those are strong words,” she said.  
  
“Strong, but entirely deserved,” Emperor Lee said, crossing his arms. “Few things I have seen have been that bad.”  
  
“Is there anything else you would rather have seen?” she tried desperately.  
  
“Oh, all manners of things,” he said.  
  
Louise breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, I very nearly fell asleep,” she said honestly. “I have seen far better plays than that.”  
  
“Quite so.” His steel gloves clinked against his armoured thigh. “I think I shall have the director killed,” he said. “It is his justly deserved fate.”  
  
“Perhaps you could feed him a copy of the script and make him choke to death on it,” Louise suggested. She frowned. “Of course, people don’t always choke on paper, so you’d probably have to poison it. Still, that way he’d have to eat his words.”  
  
Emperor Lee turned to face her. “I was just going to have an assassin with a poisoned knife stab them repeatedly when they are sleep,” he said. “Optimal way of killing.”  
  
Louise felt like a naughty schoolgirl being scolded. She squared her jaw. She wasn’t going to take that. “But,” she said, thinking quickly, “that would be too characteristic of you, and that kind of inefficient killing can be pinned on someone else.”  
  
There was a pause.  
  
“You make a fair point,” Emperor Lee said, a little stiffly. “But it should still be done efficiently.”  
  
“No,” Louise said, clasping her hands together, “clearly the death has to take as long as that abomination of a dream-play.”  
  
“You are too self-indulgent!” he countered. “You are clearly wrong! And,” he tilted his head, “do you want to get a meal? I need to tell you how wrong you are and it would be efficient to eat at the same time.”  
  
Was it really right to be plotting someone’s murder with an evil emperor? Was she losing her way with this whole overlady pretence? Was it possible that the lie might be creeping up on her, becoming real and…  
  
Oh wait, Louise remembered. The person who they were planning to kill was an evil demon who invaded the dreams of the innocent for no better reason than to amuse the demonic masses. She had almost forgotten that. Which meant that it was, in fact, not only good that she have him killed, but downright heroic.  
  
She’d almost forgotten that. Silly her.  
  
Also, it had been a _very_ bad play.  
  
“I’d love to,” she said.

* * *

“So you read Obteneratus III’s ‘Thoughts on Stellar Consumption’?” Izah’belya said, tapping her wine glass. “What did you think of it?”  
  
Henrietta tilted her head. “Well, you should understand,” she said, “I was introduced to it from the good perspective. It was a sign of the hubris of evil. But it simply wasn’t very well-written. And his arguments from the Brimiric faith as to why it was the correct choice to devour the sun were pointed out as being very theologically unsound.”  
  
“Well, it was pretty crazy,” the succubus said casually, her batlike wings twitching. “And yeah, not as well written as everyone says it is. I think it gets more credit than it deserves because of the scale of the project, but it never was that workable.” She frowned. “And I sort of feel that eating the sun is… like, _too_ evil. Plunging the world into the cold and dark just takes the fun out of everything. Literally everything. I like fire. After all, it is the best element.”  
  
Jessica was sulking and nursing her wine. Henrietta and Izah’belya were discussing theological texts she’d never read, and her attempts to contribute to the discussion hadn’t gone well.  
  
“I have to say,” Henrietta said, “I haven’t met very many succubae before. You’re not what I expected. At all.”  
  
Izah’belya laughed. “No doubt! For that, you’d probably want to look for,” she swivelled in her seat, “Maan’ikeh, say,” she said, nodding at a four-eyed, four-horned purple-skinned demoness with platinum blonde hair sitting at a table with a vacant-eyed man. “I have to fight constantly against those kinds of living stereotypes.”  
  
“Accurate stereotypes,” Jessica muttered.  
  
“Is she a relative?” Henrietta asked. She looked at Izah’belya, who looked like a human with horns and bat wings protruding from her back. “I beg your pardon if this is offensive, but you don’t look similar.”  
  
“A sister. Well, half-sister.” Izah’belya sighed. “I have far, far too many half-sisters,” she said glumly. “It’s more obvious when we take on human form that we’re related, but…” she shrugged. “When I do that, all that means is the horns and wings go.”  
  
“She really does have too many half-sisters,” Jessica interjected.  
  
“Quiet, Miss Only Child. Yes,” she continued, “our family looks very… different. But trust me, she’s a half-sister. We all get thrown into the fight for titles and respect and status. Mother is, after all, the de facto Queen of Hell, even if she’s been very reclusive since a while after I was born. She’s planning something large, I think. Oh well. All my half-sisters have a talent for knowing that we’re related. Blood calls to blood and all that.”  
  
Henrietta frowned. “So, let me get it straight,” she said, slowly. “Over there, that Monique…”  
  
“Maan’ikeh,” Izah’belya corrected her. “I’m sorry, but topworlders seem to be terrible with names.”  
  
“Sorry,” Henrietta said. “But let me guess, her father is a demon, yes? And your father must be a human… probably a Germanian, from your colouring and hair? Well, clearly the stereotypes come from the demon-parented ones. Do you take after your father? Is that how it works?”  
  
Izah’belya froze. “Excuse me?” she asked carefully.  
  
“Your father. I wonder if he’s where you get those mental traits which quite clearly make you stand out from all your half-sisters.” Her fingers tapped against the table. “I wonder; do you have any full sisters? Anyone who looks much like you?” Henrietta frowned. “I wonder who he was?” she said. “Or is, even.”  
  
Isah’belya squared her jaw. “Did you put her up to this, J’eszika?” she snapped at Jessica.  
  
“I didn’t even know you were going to barge in and demand dinner. It’s a perfectly innocent question,” Jessica said, almost managing to not smirk. “But you know, you could just answer. Or do you not know? Does your mum know and not tell you, or does she just roll on her back for so many people that even she can’t remember? You know, for all I really do hate you, you clearly get your brains from your dad. As opposed to, say, Lues’zeeneah, who’s much less of a bitch than you, but as dumb as fuck. Like yo mama. Who’s both as dumb as fuck and a dumb f-”  
  
“You’re going too far!”  
  
“Actually, FYI, nope. I’m not a succubus,” Jessica said, a grin breaking out. “As you like to so kindly point out every chance you get. And I know who both my mother and father are.” She leaned forwards. “Whatever my dear auntie chooses to do to you lot, I don’t have to care.”  
  
Izah’belya put down her napkin carefully. “For your information,” she told Henrietta, her hand twitching slightly, studiously ignoring Jessica, “it is considered very rude to ask a succubus about her father. Mother treats us all equally. It is the height of ill manners to make a thing about it, which is why my _uncouth_ cousin does it at every chance she can.”  
  
“What, because I like pointing out that when we go full demon, I’m actually clearly much more powerful than you?” Jessica said, grinning in an attractively mannish way. “That you’re actually pushing yourself to look as you do, and that your horns shrink when you’re distracted? That you don’t even have hooves?”  
  
“As I have excellent manners,” Izah’belya said, through clenched teeth, “I do not retaliate to this kind of provocation.”  
  
“Also, I’d beat you in a fight. Like last time you did react.”  
  
“Oh, shut the fuck up, you stupid spoilt mannish brat!” Izah’belya snapped, jumping to her feet. Her hands clenched into fists, balling in impotent rage. “Just… just shut up!”  
  
“Wanna brawl?” Jessica said throatily, long goatish horns extruding from her hair. She too rose, though she was looming slightly as her chest and arms bulked out. Her shadowy bat wings extended too, larger than Izah’belya’s.  
  
“I…” Izah’belya bit down on what she had been about to say. “I am very sorry for how my cousin has decided to act,” she told Henrietta. “If you would like to continue our conversation without her, I would be happy to.” And with that said, she stormed out.  
  
There was silence at the table.  
  
“Did you have to do that?” Henrietta said, sounding faintly shocked. “That was a bit… mean. I thought we were getting on quite well.”  
  
“She’s a bitch, and had it coming,” Jessica said, reaching for the wine. “After this, let’s go to the night clubs! Oh, this is going to be great.”  
  
“I think the evening is quite ruined,” Henrietta said coldly. “I would prefer to head back to the tower.”

* * *

There was a knock at Louise’s door. Louise looked up from the papers she was working on. “Enter,” she said.  
  
“Gnarl said you were back already,” Henrietta said, her hair very mussed from a day of wearing a helmet. She had discarded the breastplate, and was only wearing the soft dress part of her outfit, and was carrying a satchel in her hand. “So! How did it go?”  
  
Louise smiled softly, mostly to herself. “Well, Emperor Lee didn’t try to kill me once! And the swevenkino was dire. Just terrible,” she said.  
  
“Are you using evil language?” Henrietta asked.  
  
“No, I most certainly am not! It was really boring! It was just like a play happening behind this very decadent glass screen, but it wasn’t a very good play. Also, because the glass was in the way we couldn’t throw food at the actors.”  
  
Henrietta shook her head sadly. “But that’s one of the best bits of a terrible play,” she protested.  
  
“Quite so!”  
  
“And…” Henrietta asked, nudging her, “so what did you think of the emperor?”  
  
Louise turned pink. “He was nice enough. He found the swevenkino boring as well, thank goodness, so we got to talk about that.”  
  
“Did you kiss him?”  
  
“Wh-what kind of question is that?”  
  
“A relevant one. You are courting, after all.” Henrietta smiled. “I kissed the Prince Wales,” she said, with a giggle.  
  
“No, I did not kiss him!” Louise sighed. “But after that, we went and had a meal together, and then we got to talking about how we’d make the writer of that dreadful dreadful play suffer. And then we got talking about military strategy and sabotage. I liked that bit. And then we went and looked at the magma lakes.”  
  
“My goodness,” Henrietta said. “Well, whatever makes you happy, I suppose. And were the magma lakes romantic?”  
  
“No, they were mostly just hot and smelt of sulphur,” Louise said. “We had to leave pretty quickly because they… I mean, they were pretty interesting to look at, but I wouldn’t call them romantic. At all.” She sighed. “And those Romalian assassins didn’t show up at all! That’s not fair!”  
  
“There, there,” Henrietta said, patting her hand.  
  
“I went and put myself – and you! – apparently vulnerable. Any half-way decent assassin should have leapt at the chance! They should have interrupted that terrible, terrible play at the swevenkino and then that would have been an attack on the person of Emperor Lee and then he would have been obliged to hunt them down!”  
  
“Perhaps that’s why they didn’t do it,” Henrietta suggested.  
  
“I hate smart enemies,” Louise muttered, her head sinking down onto her arms. “Stupid people not falling for my cunning plan. They didn’t even try to kill you and get swarmed over by all those minions I had protecting you. I’d sent all the greens I could find, so you wouldn’t see them. And I’ve talked to Catt, and she said they didn’t try to break in here. And she was very disappointed about that, because she was hungry.” Louise headbutted her arms. “I was so sure it would work!”  
  
Henrietta nudged her. “So, do you think you’d want to do that with Emperor Lee again, Louise Françoise?” she asked.  
  
“Why are you pushing this?” Louise said, not raising her head.  
  
“Ahem. Because he’s the emperor of the most powerful nation in the Mystic East – possibly the world - and he seems to be courting you?” Henrietta suggested. “And on top of that, he’s passingly handsome – though nowhere near as gorgeous as Cearl was – and while he’s an evil tyrant, so are you.”  
  
“I’m just pretending,” Louise muttered reflexively. “And… and I don’t want to be romantically involved! With anyone! It just… it j-just makes everything more complicated! It’s bad enough when Jessica getting worked up makes me get all hot and bothered, and that’s just evil demonic stuff, not me! Can’t people just let me kill the Council and put you back on the throne without… without bodies and men and women making everything more complicated!” She sighed. “But yes, I mean… it wasn’t like the stories. It wasn’t some eternal undying love thing. I’m pretty sure of that. But, I mean…” she trailed off, looking for the right words. “I mean, I had fun, I think. He was handsome, and I liked arguing tactics and strategy with him. And I think I’d like to do that again. Only not going to the bad, bad play.”  
  
Henrietta moved around to hug her friend from behind, resting her head on her back. Louise let out a small ‘eep’, before she realised what was happening. “Poor, poor Louise,” she said. “This must be very hard on you.” She giggled. “You’re practically having to endure the life of a queen, only without the title or anything and with only evil smelly goblins as your subjects. I don’t tell you enough how grateful I am that you’re doing this, do I? I owe you so, so much. Your eighteenth birthday is coming up, isn't it? You're a summer birth, anyway. I'm going to have to do something very nice for you.” She paused. “In fact, I have a _special_ present for you right now. A very, very special one.”  
  
Louise blushed a flaming red. Her stomach was squirming, and Henrietta felt far too close. She could feel Henrietta’s warmth up against her back. Everything felt like Jessica was nearby and highly agitated. That had to be it. Yes.  
  
Henrietta mercifully let go, and put the leather satchel down on her desk. “I got you some of those occult tomes when Jessica and I went shopping! There was a book about fire magic and you seem to use it a lot, so I thought you might like it!”  
  
The evil overlady’s stomach churned, and she wasn’t sure if she was happy or sad. “Thank you,” she said, but her mind wasn’t on it. Was she feverish? She rose with a clatter of her chair. She was feeling warm and flushed, her cheeks were burning. It wasn’t right. And the air felt stuffy and thick. She caught herself staring at the mussed-looking Henrietta, and had no idea why. “I… I need to go do s-something,” Louise stammered, backing around the edge of the room. “Something important! Something… uh! Like… like, yes, I need to go work on the m-minion hive. I have a really important… thing! Which I will get to!”

* * *

No. No.  
  
That was impossible, Louise thought, as, hand shaking, she tried to focus on the pages. She’d loaded up the hive with a life essence brew, and was waiting while it worked, trying to resolve the confusion in her head. She was just… tired. She had been blushing and idly considering what it would be like to kiss Emperor Lee during the later bits of the meal, after all. And thinking he was handsome. And clearly talking about him with Henrietta had her feeling all mixed up. And she was probably ill anyway.  
  
Or maybe it was all her body’s fault! After all, she had been focussing for almost a year on how to free Princess Henrietta from jail and she did have a lot of very evil people in her ancestry. Clearly it was just confused because of the influence from her heritage, and thought she was kidnapping Henrietta to marry her.  
  
And it was also all Jessica’s fault! Because she had few friends – in fact if she was to be quite honest, Princess Henrietta and Jessica were really the only ones she had since she was about ten or so – and part of the problem of being Jessica’s friend was the way she got hit with misattributed amorousness whenever the half-incubus got worked up. So her body was getting confused with “friend” and “person you’re attracted to”.  
  
Louise took a deep breath. Yes. The shaking had stopped. Or at least wasn’t so bad. She’d made sense of it. She’d just have to deal with it, and never ever let Henrietta know that she was feeling all mixed up. She thought of Emperor Lee. Yes, he was handsome, and yes, she would maybe like to see what it was like to kiss him. And even when she was getting messed around with by Jessica, it was the male demon aura which was getting her feeling strange.  
  
It would be good if she could talk to Cattleya about this, but… no. Louise squared her jaw. She couldn’t let anyone know. What would Cattleya say if she knew?  
  
It was her problem and she’d deal with it.  
  
And – her chain of thought was interrupted, as an ichor-covered black-skinned minion slithered out of the hive. It rose to its feet, and opened eyes which burned with malignant light.  
  
Louise’s eyes widened in shock. Oh no.  
  
_*blort*_  
  
The overlady kicked the door from the research area open in a towering rage.  
  
“That’s it!” Louise yelled, covered in foul-smelling black goo. “Gnarl! Go find out if there’s anyone who might know how to get this blasted wretched stupid minion hive working! I have had enough! And since they’re probably in Amstreldamme and that wretched Madame de Montespan lives there, Operation Kill Wardes’ Mistress starts today!”


	38. What, Another Heroic Interlude?

**What, Another Heroic Interlude?**  
  
The giant betentacled monstrosity collapsed with a sound not entirely unlike a deflating balloon, or perhaps the largest whoopee cushion since the ‘Hurricane of Laughs’ of Baron von Zhallowumor. The foul wind that it exhaled only fanned the fires which ravaged what had been a beautiful forest glade.  
  
A bronze sword broke its skin. From the inside.  
  
This was, of course, completely the wrong way of going about such a course of action. From a traditional point of view, it should have been the larval form of the monster which tore its way out of the chest of the human. However, the youth of today showed little regard for the finer forms of established culture, and so the eighteen-year old Guiche de Gramont tore his way out from inside the chest of the great beast, presumably to undergo some form of metamorphosis shortly thereafter.  
  
Even if he was a little old to be a larva.  
  
“You let me get eaten!” Guiche shouted, covered in colourless fish-smelling slime. Holding one of his bronze golems’ swords, he hacked at the opening, trying to force it wider without dropping the slime-covered sword.  
  
“Hey!” Kirche objected from behind an icy barricade. She was covered in sweat and soot. A similarly dishevelled Montmorency sighed in relief at the sight of him, and slumped down. “We were kind of busy here. Kind of really busy! It had all those tentacles! And they had hooks and mouths on them! They weren’t the f-”  
  
“You let me get eaten!” Guiche repeated, on the grounds that now was not the time for innuendo.  
  
“-un kind of tentacle,” Kirche continued, on the grounds that it was always time for innuendo. She paused. “Anyway, remember the mystic scroll we found? It did tell us that the monster was a) weak to sharp objects from the inside, and b) liked eating blonds.”  
  
“This was part of your plan?” Guiche managed, slithering out of the wound. “You didn’t say that!”  
  
“Wait!” Monmon said, her voice also rising. “I didn’t see the bit about it liking blondes!”  
  
Kirche rolled her eyes. “No, of course it wasn’t part of a plan. You were meant to block the tendrils while I burned it. Only it started using all that slime which didn’t burn well. Which isn’t very fair at all.”  
  
“It’s in my mouth! It… it tastes of fish,” Guiche moaned. “Give me something to wash out my mouth, quickly! It tastes like rotten fish and… I’m going to be sick.”  
  
Montmorency winced. “Harvesting its eggs is going to be really unpleasant,” she said. She put on long gloves, and drew a sharp knife. “Kirche, be on your guard in case it’s playing dead. We need to get to those eggs and get them on ice before they start rotting.”  
  
“Right,” Kirche agreed. “They’re like rubies. If rubies rotted. And smelt of fish and...” she sniffed and made a face, “... rotten eggs, I think. Urgh.”  
  
“This wouldn’t have happened if Tabitha was here,” Guiche said sulkily, heading over to the packs washing his mouth out with wine. “She could have just frozen it solid.”  
  
“Yeah, well,” Kirche said, with a shrug, as Montmorency started butchering the abomination. “She had to go home back to Gallia for something.”

* * *

Long ago, the monarchs of Gallia had realised that the throne swung between Good and Evil with all the regularity of a metronome, and in a display of sideways logic and pragmatism had decided to make use of it. By institutionalising the royal family’s tendency towards heroic bravery and utmost wickedness, in theory Gallia would have an advantage against all other nations because both Good and Evil would be working together for Gallia. Hence, members of the royal family were trained in roles appropriate to their natural temperament – or at least their temperament as it was perceived – and so in theory they could work together in unassailable harmony.  
  
In practice, of course, it meant that a lot of royal relatives got murdered by court-trained assassin-princes hungry for power or executed by morally outraged judge-princesses who had just found what their Evil brother was up to. That was just an implementation detail, however, and the theory was still held to be sound.  
  
Unfortunately, the current generation of princesses had certain… issues.  
  
Princess Isabella of Gallia clasped her hands to her chest. With a morose exclamation, she sprawled backwards onto her plush chair, her long and very pink dress flowing out around her. “Oh, non!” she declared. “Woe to uz, zat ze world eez such a wicked place! How can zose of uz who are good stand against such dreadful cruelty, non? Of course, I am not speaking about you, couzin, for you are one of zose aforementioned wickednesses! And ze duc d’Normandie! Oh, ‘ow wicked eez ‘e! If only ‘e would rid ze world of ‘is unrighteous self! Ah, non! But we ‘ave given ‘im clemency for ‘is many wrongful deeds!”  
  
Before her knelt Princess Charlotte Helene Orléans de Gallia, the duchess of Orleans, who more commonly went by the name of Tabitha. Presumably she had reasons for that. She, as appropriate for an individual who was self-evidently as evil as her cousin was good, was dressed entirely in black. There were small, decorative spikes on her glasses.  
  
“What you are ordering me to do eez to go to ze estate of the duc d’Normandie, kill ‘im and ‘is family, and make eet look like a suizide,” Tabitha said bluntly.  
  
Princess Isabella sighed extravagantly. “Suizide would – oh! – be a most unrighteouz sin, and would damn ‘im forever,” she said, resting her hands on her heaving, albeit typically sized for the Gallian royal family, bosom. “I could not pozzibly condone such an action! Eet would mean ‘e would be condemned by ze Church... and not even receive a righteouz burial!” She narrowed her eyes. “You wicked, sinful girl! ‘Ow could you possibly say zat I could tell you to do zat? Even eef ‘e eez a traitor ‘o eez working with ze Regenzy Council of Triztain and ze Albioneze Reconqueezta! Oh! ‘Ow hard eet eez being Good, and unable to order ‘im to be killed een such a way! Eef I was as wicked as you, I would mozt certainly order you to do zat, no?”  
  
Tabitha really did wish that her cousin would get over the whole ‘trying to be Good’ thing and go back to just directly telling her to kill people. Princess Isabella had started talking about how she had to ‘fight against her heritage’ and ‘be a better person’ and ‘choose her own path in life’, but the main difference seemed to be that Tabitha now had to try to interpret her orders from what she was ordered not to do. And in addition, she now got insulted for being Evil, rather than all the other reasons which Isabella had used to insult her. She didn’t mind killing people. It was easy. But sitting here and being lectured at was hard.  
  
Also, her cousin’s mannerisms were very annoying. And all the pink got on her nerves. Tabitha _hated_ pink. It was such a masculine colour.  
  
She wished she was with Kirche, Monmon and Guiche. They never lectured her about being Evil. They just took her to interesting places where there were lots of exotic things living, which almost invariably tried to kill them. It was nice, mentally simple, and challenging work. As a prodigal graduate of the very elite Gallian Assassin’s College, Tabitha had never expected to encounter as wide a variety of foes as Kirche managed to stumble into on a weekly basis.  
  
It was remarkable, really. She strongly suspect the forces of Evil were following her friends around, because that was the only explanation she could think of to explain all the various mishaps they managed to get into. Well, the forces of Evil which weren’t her or Irukuwa.  
  
Tabitha was vaguely aware that she hadn’t always found Evil so easy or natural. But that lay in the past, and she did not think of that. It hurt to do so.  
  
“I will be on my way, wiz your permizzion, oui?” she said.  
  
“As long as you do not go kill ze duc d’Normandie,” Isabella said, momentarily cold eyes staring down over the top of a large fan before she remembered she was meant to be coquettish.  
  
Tabitha nodded, and rose.  
  
“Whatever you do,” Isabella called out from behind her, “do not make sure zat ze entire line eez extinguizhed! That includez the baztard daughter ‘e keeps living up een ze tower! If someone were to murder ze necezzary seventeen individuals, ze estate would return to ze crown. Zut alors, you are une problem! ‘Ow wicked are you zat you would conzider such a theeng?”  
  
Ice on the stairs should do it, Tabitha thought to herself. Or maybe she should just have Irukuwa tear the roof off and eat the girl. Her familiar did so like eating people. And Tabitha liked making her friends happy.

* * *

Montmorency grinned. “Well, since she’s not here, she doesn’t get a share of the money,” she said. She was methodically cutting out the eggs from inside the monster and putting them in ice. “I really do appreciate the way that everyone else has gone running off after the kidnapped princess. We get to pick up all the other well-paying contracts without any competition at all.”  
  
“We should be trying to save Princess Henrietta,” Guiche said, in the tones of someone bringing up an old argument that he didn’t particularly expect to win. “Don’t you have any patriotism?”  
  
“I am a very patriotic Germanian,” Kirche told him, smirking. “And that means I don’t have to spend time running around wasting effort when no one even knows where this Steel Maiden person keeps her base and the reward they’re offering is… kinda on the small side for rescuing royalty. And anyway, all the Tristainian heroes are running off after the princess, which leaves all these sweet, sweet profitable opportunities for us while they take care of it.” Her expression soured. “Plus, she has Minions. With a capital ‘M’. You know there’s an entire breed of Minions who are just _completely immune_ to fire magic? That’s basically blasphemy.”  
  
“Blasphemy?” Monmon asked, raising her eyebrows. “What, it’s a blasphemy for things to not die when they’re set on fire?”  
  
“Yes,” Kirche said promptly. “Pope Igniferon III issued a papal proclamation that since fire cleanses all sins, only the irrevocably damned do not burn, for they have forsaken all chance of redemption. Not being flammable is a sin.”  
  
“Wait a minute,” Guiche said, frowning. “Didn’t he try to set fire to the ocean? And excommunicated some mountains for failing to melt?”  
  
“There were dragons living in those mountains,” Kirche said, sounding hurt. “They were evil mountains.”  
  
“I know you’re enjoying this theological discussion,” Monmon said, shaking her head, “but maybe we can get to emptying its hoard and making sure we get all those valuable eggs? Before anyone else shows up?”  
  
“Right! I’ll go find the hoard.” Kirche glanced at Guiche. “And you better go jump in a pond. You stink.”

* * *

The pond did not help a great deal, and Guiche’s horse was decidedly unhappy by the time they got to an inn. His mole familiar was even less happy, for it had a very sensitive nose, and was therefore riding on Monmon’s horse; as far away from its master as possible.  
  
This left her somewhat distressed, especially when it kept on licking her ear. It was for this reason that she put her hands on her hips as soon as they arrived, informed Guiche that he would be taking a bath, and ordered him to not get out until he no longer smelt of dead betentacled monstrosity.  
  
“Scrub everywhere! And I mean everywhere!” she concluded.  
  
“My my,” Kirche said mildly, grinning.  
  
“I am not in the mood! I… I will wash your filthy mouth out with soap!” Montmorency snapped, whirling on her. “And I don’t even know what you mean by that, but you said it in _that_ tone of voice so it couldn’t be good!” She turned on Guiche. “Go! Wash! Now!”  
  
Throwing his hands up in mock protest, the boy departed.  
  
“So,” Kirche said, when he was out of earshot, “I really don’t get why you two don’t just get rid of all the sexual tension and just do it. You already act like an old married couple.”  
  
Monmon frowned. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said, taking a seat at a table. “I am a proper young lady and we don’t do certain things.”  
  
“Like cutting a man’s throat with an icicle?” Kirche asked, grinning and sitting down opposite her.  
  
“That… that was in self-defence! And it wasn’t a man! It was a werewolf!”  
  
“You didn’t know that at the time,” Kirche pointed out. “But seriously, you’ve killed, you’ve stolen… sorry, liberated… and you in particular are now rather wealthy. You could totally propose, or hint strongly to him that he could propose. No one would object, either.”  
  
“Firstly, that werewolf? He had a knife! I want to make that clear! I didn’t do it for no reason! It was self-defence!” Monmon crossed her arms. “And as to the other point, why are you being such a… such a pain about this?”  
  
Kirche shrugged, sinking down on her seat. “I dunno. Maybe because… look, when we started this, the two of you were from poor noble families. Now he’s independently wealthy and you’re rather more than that because of those investments you made. If you wanted to, you two could marry.”  
  
Monmon swallowed. “I’m… I’m not ready for that,” she said quietly. “I’m not even eighteen yet. I don’t want children and marriage or…”  
  
“Oh, trust me,” Kirche said, smirking, “those two aren’t related. At all.”  
  
“They are if you want any respect!” the blonde retorted. “Brides who do the kind of thing that we do are disreputable. Even if they’re rich – in fact, doubly so if they’re rich. I know what families like mine think of women who are mercenaries. They’re barely better than women who sell their bodies in the other way. I have to keep a clean reputation, or…”  
  
“Do you think it matters to Guiche?” Kirche asked gently.  
  
“It matters to me! And it matters to everyone else!” Monmon snapped.  
  
Kirche fumbled for her purse. “Or maybe you’re just waiting for someone else and leading him on,” she said. “Maybe you think there’s some ‘true love’ out there waiting for you?”  
  
“What? No!” Monmon said. “It’s not like…” she looked over to the bar, “like I’m holding off so I can jump into bed with, say, him. Trying a bit hard, isn’t he?” she said, nodding towards a man stood at the bar. It was definitely a man. Not only were his heels tremendously high, but his cuffs were so lacy that they were getting in the way of his hands. His doublet was a deep crimson and decorated, as was the style among certain young men, with purely ornamental knife cuts, revealing a second layer of fine black fabric. He wore both a wandsword and a short sword at his belt. His long curled strawberry blonde hair was thrown with manufactured carelessness around his shoulders, and his face was elaborately rouged.  
  
He was also beardless and appeared to be about twelve, despite the fact that he had ordered the largest measure of beer that the inn was serving.  
  
Kirche sighed. “You can say that again,” she said sadly, shaking her head as she rose. “Hey! Dani! Get over here!” she called out, waving.  
  
“Kirche!” the boy called back, whirling around.  
  
“You know him?” Monmon asked.  
  
“Dani? Yeah. Just a bit. Being that he is, you know, one of my younger brothers.”  
  
“Ah, I see.” Monmon blinked. “But wait, you said…”  
  
“ _He_ is one of my younger _brothers_ ,” Kirche repeated, slowly. “Do you understand?”  
  
“But…”  
  
“Don’t make me set you on fire. Which I will, if you’re not going to be civil to _him_ ,” Kirche said in a low, flat, and completely serious tone. “I look after both my sisters and my brothers. I am a protective older sister or brother, depending on whether Dad’s around.”  
  
Montmorency worked her jaw and went slightly cross-eyed, but said nothing more.  
  
“What are you doing here?” Dani demanded. “What are you wearing? Father would be _so angry_ if he caught you dressing like that,” he said, crossing his arms.  
  
“Just as well he’s not going to catch me,” Kirche retorted, flicking her brother on the nose. “I keep track of him, and he’s in Iberia at the moment. You could get out of your manly lace and high heels and wash the rouge off your face and dress like a girl, you know; if you wanted to. You know, like he does.”  
  
Dani sniffed. “Why would I want to?” he said. “Dad’s not right about everything.”  
  
“You’ll change your tune once you start having to wear a corset all the time to get away with that figure,” Kirche pointed out. “And you will. It’s bloody painful.”  
  
“I won’t!”  
  
“You’re already having to wear looser shirts,” Kirche said, pointing at her brother’s chest.  
  
Dani crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “They’re not going to grow anymore! Not if I don’t want them to!”  
  
“You’re a von Zerbst,” Kirche said knowingly. “They’ll grow. And mother’s even bigger. Face it Dani, I’m going to have to help you deal with them.”  
  
“They won’t grow!”  
  
“Much as I’m enjoying watching you air your… uh, strange family situation,” Monmon drawled, “and really, I am, don’t let me stop you…”  
  
“Who’s she?” Dani asked. “Blonde, ringlets… oh, is she the barely adequate piece of filly Father said you were doing the rumpy-pumpy with?” he said, his tone shifting as if reciting what someone else had said.  
  
Monmon turned bright red. “Wha-?”  
  
Kirche rolled her eyes. “Father gets the wrong idea about many things,” she said wearily, and paused. “Especially when I did sort of lie to him about that, remember? You had to go fix my ribs after I fractured one and we needed an excuse to get me away from him.”  
  
“Barely adequate?” Monmon said, her pitch rising.  
  
“Oh yeah, that.” Kirche looked sternly at her brother. “Dani, don’t call my friends that. Just because Guiche is a prettier blond than her doesn’t make her ‘barely adequate’.”  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“Look, Monmon, Guiche is so pretty that I’m actively not attracted to him. I prefer my men more rugged. It’s no great sin to be less pretty than him.”  
  
“But it’s what father said!” Dani said mulishly.  
  
“You yourself just said he’s not right about everything. And we’re in Tristain at the moment. The standards of behaviour are rather different.” Kirche shook her head. “Food!” she said, changing the topic. “I’m starving. We killed a vast slimy monster with tentacles today, you know. And picked up some rather nice gems from its mound.”  
  
“And all kinds of very valuable alchemical reagents from its eggs,” Monmon added snidely.  
  
Dani’s shoulders slumped. “You… already got it,” he said flatly. “Yeah, thanks a _bunch_ Kirche. I was going to kill it!”  
  
“Sit,” Kirche told him. “Dani, what were you thinking? And oi!” she hailed one of the servers, “milk for the boy!”  
  
“Aww, but…”  
  
“Would you prefer cider?” Kirche asked, shrugging.  
  
Dani wrinkled his brow. “Fine, milk,” he muttered. “And that’s not fair! I was going to kill it and…”  
  
Kirche sighed, waving his complaints off. “Does Mother know where you are?” she asked, bluntly.  
  
Her brother crossed his arms. “Like she knows where anyone is,” he muttered. “She’s off on another one of her trips. God forbid she actually spend any time at home when she could be off enjoying herself. I think she’s off on holiday in Roma on some pilgrimage again. She’s _always_ on some pilgrimage or another. And before you ask,” he added, “Sam’s back home, so he’s looking after the younger ones.”  
  
“Right. Good. Now, Dani, listen.” Kirche said. “There’s no way you were prepared on your own to face that thing. It took three of us, and Guiche got eaten by it.”  
  
His eyes widened. “Is he all right?” Dani asked. “You’re talking about the Guiche de Gramont, yes? The man who captured Fouquet, and who slew the Beast of Boullission?”  
  
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s Guiche. He’s fine. He cut his way out from the inside.” Kirche sighed. “Dani, you’re twelve,” she said. “Even I wasn’t going out on my own at that age. Well, I mean, apart from setting fire to things like goblin tribes, but they’re not real challenges. What were you thinking?”  
  
“You do this kind of thing all the time!” Dani protested.  
  
“Firstly, okay, I’m much older than you. And I do things as part of a team. And… listen, Dani…”  
  
Whatever she had been about to say was lost in the noise of breaking shutters as a man swung straight through them, ignoring the perfectly serviceable door a few feet to their left. “Ah ha!” he declared loudly, to screams and the other inhabitants trying to vacate the bar. “Flee! _Si_ , flee you foolish peasants! Or stay and watch the triumph of evil! It is up to you!”  
  
The man was dressed all in dapper black and held a blade and a duelling wandsword. One of the scabbards at his belt was plain black leather; the other was more elaborate, and bore the royal seal of the cast-down Albionese throne. Elegantly combed dark red hair flowed back from behind his black mask. What could be seen of his skin was tanned.  
  
“Prepare to face the wrath of Don Marikos, my _sister_ ,” he sneered, dipping his blade to Kirche in a mocking salute. “Soon your blood will stain my sword, and the tears of your father will be my vengeance! My vengeance in the name of honour!”  
  
Dani and Kirche stared at each other, and sighed.  
  
“Oh, bloody abyss,” Dani said, reaching at his belt for a knife and his wand.  
  
“I know, right? _Another_ evil half-brother? Seriously, where do they all come from?” Kirche said sadly, taking another sip of her drink.  
  
“Your father’s inability to keep it in his pants?” Monmon said snidely, from behind the cover of an overturned table.  
  
“Yeah, well, apart from that.”  
  
Don Marikos whipped his blade through the air with a silken tearing noise. “Be quiet. Spend your last moments asking your god for forgiveness, and then prepare to die!”  
  
“Do you want a drink?” Kirche asked. “Before we fight? Oi, waiter, a glass of wine for my half-brother! Dani, do you know which of Dad’s bastards this is?”  
  
Dani shook his head. “I don’t think so. I mean, he’s Iberian, but I think the last evil Iberian bastard got killed by Sam.”  
  
“Oh, urgh. This is going to bug me.”  
  
“Take this seriously, please” Don Marikos said coldly.  
  
“Oh, I’m trying,” Kirche drawled, “and I’m failing. You’re the eighth evil half-sibling to try to kill me. Two of them were demons.”  
  
“I’ve had two,” Dani contributed. “The last one was only two weeks ago. I stabbed her in the wand-hand and then broke her jaw.” He paused. “Rrrawwrr,” he tried.  
  
“Your bravado. Yes, very good,” Don Marikos said. “Please, do not run. I have the building surrounded with a company of the best of the mercenaries of Iberia. They will kill everyone inside if you refuse to fight me in a duel of honour.”  
  
“Seen it before” Kirche retorted. “And killing everyone inside doesn’t sound much like honour.”  
  
“Yes! The same lack of honour displayed by our dear sadly-not-yet-deceased father who left my mother penniless, pregnant and dishonoured – and he even killed her dragon! Yes, she was a dragoon! He took away her means of support!” he retorted, eyes gleaming. “Killing you will hurt him, sister, so I will kill you. And then your little _sister_.”  
  
Suddenly Kirche was on her feet, wandsword in hand. “I’ll gut you and then burn you alive,” she said coldly.  
  
“Ah ha. Yes, you can try, dearest sister. Touched a nerve, did I?”  
  
“I’ll touch your nerves. With fire,” Kirche growled, kicking the table aside. The two of them circled, wand-swords drawn and tips on target. They did not cast. Yet.  
  
Monmon grabbed Dani by the scruff of his elaborately laced neck and pulled him back behind the cover of the table.  
  
“Let me go!” he protested. “I have to help my brother.”  
  
“… I’m not even going to get started on that,” Monmon sighed. “But we’re going to keep out of Kirche’s way so she can cut loose. Behind a nice, solid, and – if you look, I’ve been busy – ice-coated table. And then if I get the chance, I can shoot him in the back.”  
  
“But that would be dishonourable,” Dani said. “What are you, some kind of merchant?”  
  
“I wonder if Kirche was this annoying when she was younger?” Montmonrency muttered under her breath.  
  
The roar of fire filled the room as the two mages attacked at once. A wash of heat marked the two jets deflecting each other. As if by mutual consent, they ceased, and the man stepped in, swinging at Kirche’s head.  
  
Metal clashed with metal, and she barked a single word. Don Marikos went to deflect the fireball, and thus was somewhat surprised when he was hit in the stomach by a lump of rock. He gasped and staggered backwards, but managed to deflect her flicking cut. He dived backward, kicking a chair at her to gain distance, and then lunged with a fireball of his own as she cut through it.  
  
Back and forwards they jostled for position, stray bursts of fire scorching the ceiling and walls and shattering the pots of olive oil against one wall. Flames crackled hungrily, and the ring of steel on steel sounded again and again between the barked incantations and bursts of fire. The air soon filled with smoke from broken, burning furniture, but the mages fought on regardless. If one attacked with magic, the other would deflect it. If they attacked with steel, the other responded with fire. Both blades sought the other’s wand as they tried to deflect them off target with swordplay, or disarm them entirely.  
  
And Kirche was the better swordsman, or possibly swordwoman. Step by step, she was forcing him back, and none of his attacks were getting close.  
  
Surprisingly, though, her half-brother showed no fear or concern. The man barked a single word, spraying blinding sparks everywhere. He stepped in with a straight cut, only to be met by Kirche’s blind stop thrust. The blade went through his neck with a wet, meaty sound. Kirche whipped the blade out and immediately returned to her guard position, blinking the sunspots out of her eyes.  
  
The man didn’t die. He didn’t stop. He just kept on attacking.  
  
“What?!” Monmon hissed.  
  
There was no sign of the mortal injury he had taken. His throat was intact. Yet the blood stained Kirche’s wandsword. Another flick, and she cut under his guard and slashed across his face. This time, the onlookers saw the gash close nearly instantly.  
  
“How?” Kirche accompanied the word with a feint.  
  
He patted his scabbard. “It was just lying around in an Albionese royal tomb for anyone to find,” he smirked, leaning back. “Sure, I had to desecrate the grave a bit to get the dead to rise up and try to kill me so I could get past one of the final wards, but who doesn’t do that? It was just a grave.”  
  
Kirche glared. “When I desecrate graves, it’s totally different!” she snapped, breathing heavily.  
  
Marikos stepped in, and stepped in again, forcing Kirche to retreat. She cut to his head, and the noise of blade striking bone sounded out as he blocked the chop with his forearm.  
  
Then he stabbed her. She screamed as his wandsword went through her shoulder, and staggered back, desperately trying to keep her guard up.  
  
“Uh, uh. Too slow,” he chided her.  
  
“Go stick your h-head in the… the Abyss.”  
  
“Now, that’s not very nice. Don’t speak that way in front of your little sister. In the few moments she has left before I kill her too.”  
  
Kirche straightened up, teeth clenched together. Left arm pressed to the injury, she forced herself to advance, throwing fireball after fireball in his face with reckless abandon. The cloth he wore didn’t even smoulder, and he smiled throughout.  
  
“I’ll k-k-kill you,” she growled.  
  
Don Marikos spread his arms wide. “Come on, then,” he said, smirking. “Come at me, sister.”  
  
Kirche gasped, trying to hold onto her wandsword with trembling fingers. She kept her injured arm pressed up against the wound, and eyed him up, from top to bottom. Panting, she tried to take a slow breath, and then stepped in, her blade dancing. Rather than stab, she slashed, flowing from cut to cut. And then she stepped back, gasping in pain.  
  
Her half-brother smirked. “Oh, come on,” he said. “You didn’t even break the skin. That’s not very good, is it?”  
  
Then his clothes dropped off him in slithers. Somehow, even his boots disintegrated, slit down the sides. The sound of his codpiece hitting the ground was surprisingly loud in the silence.  
  
Kirche managed a weak grin. “Well, looks like you’re not much of a Zerbst _there_ ,” she said weakly, slumping to the ground as she dropped her wand. “Mummy’s boy, really.”  
  
“What did you…” her newly denuded brother exclaimed.  
  
“Oh, like F-Father wouldn’t teach his eldest _that_ trick,” Kirche said. “It’s… even easier on men than women. Don’t have to… to avoid… the breasts. He… made me practice. On pig carcasses in dresses. Drilled me until. I had it perfect. Took me… now!”  
  
Monmon rose from the cover, sending a volley of ice barbs. He spun and snapped a word. The ice met fire and melted, clouds of steam billowing forth.  
  
He wagged his finger at her. “Uh uh uh,” he said. And then he was hit by a ballistic, foam-clad and sopping wet Guiche.  
  
The two boys staggered together and slammed into one of the abandoned and miraculously unburnt tables. Don Marikos screamed as the blond stomped on his foot, and he went over backwards. His flailing arms reached for something, anything to arrest his fall, but only managed to knock the pitchers of olive oil down onto the two of them. Then they got to work trying to kill, or at the very least maim one another.  
  
Montmorency paused, wavering. She should help Guiche. He might have had the other man locked in a hard grip despite the oil that covered both of them, holding him tight from behind, but what if the villain escaped? The grunts and yelps as they competed to dominate the other told her how close their conflict was. But a glance at Kirche changed her mind. The other girl was pale under her tan, and her top was covered in blood.  
  
“Help Guiche,” Kirche managed. “Ignore m-me.”  
  
“You idiot!” Monmon snapped, rummaging in her bag for bandages. “I should charge you for this! What possessed you to go and do that show-off blade thing after he’d stabbed you! You probably made the wound worse!”  
  
“He was doing it wrong,” Kirche managed through clenched teeth. She was pale under her tan, and shaking. “I… had to get his… belt off.”  
  
“Idiot! You complete and utter… idiot!” Monmon snapped, producing thick cloths and holding them to the wound. “Keep these in place,” she told Dani while she dived back into her bag.  
  
“The scabbard… his invincib… thingie which meant he didn’t get hurt,” Kirche said faintly, her words almost lost under the noise of the brawl between the Iberian and Guiche. “Albionese. Heard of it. Myth. Had to get his belt off.” She gave a weak, bubbling laugh which quickly became a cough. “Not usually the context. I say that. But then again. He is my brother. Have my. Limits.”  
  
Monmon pulled out two stoppered bottles. Uncorking one, she splashed it all over her hands. The second went over the wound and Kirche screamed.  
  
“It’s an astringent,” Monmon said, conjuring snow with a gesture. She handed it to Dani. “Hold this over the injury. We need to slow the bleeding before I can start a proper healing. And we need to deal with…”  
  
Guiche shouted three words, and the floor rumbled, shaking the room. Stone wrenched, and Don Marikos sunk into the suddenly liquid stone. The spell ended with him trapped on all fours, feet and hands sealed inside the stone.  
  
“Ah ha!” Guiche declared, one hand on his hip while the other held the other man’s wandsword. With terrible slowness, the last remaining bit of his vital foam covering detached, and landed on the floor with a splattering noise. “We have you now, wrongdoer! You will know the justice of the Crown!”  
  
Monmon stared. Glancing sideways, she realised Dani was staring too. “Guiche…” she said warningly.  
  
“Such does good always triumph.” Guiche bit his lip, turning to face the girls fully. “Sorry,” he apologised. “I had my head underwater, and then I smelt smoke, but I didn’t realise something was up until I heard Kirche scream.”  
  
“Ha. Ow ow ow,” Kirche gasped. “Should… have screamed earlier.” Her eyes drifted south. “You go, girl,” she told Monmon.  
  
“You’re… you’re terrible,” Monmon managed, turning back to pay attention to Kirche. “At a time like this?”  
  
“Can’t think. Of better time. Hurts less when I’m not thinking of it.”  
  
“Dani, move your hands,” Monmon told her, wand in hand. Muttering, she turned the snow packed into the injury back into water, and let it sink in. “Hold the bandages. I’ll need you to staunch it if the blood flow increases.”  
  
“Danny, is it?” Guiche asked casually. “Sorry we have to meet like this. Mon, how’s Kirche?”  
  
“Bad,” she said tersely. “Don’t distract me. I’ve got the bleeding down, but it’s going to be touch and go.”  
  
Dani stared at his half-brother, sunken into the ground. “How did you manage that?” he squeaked.  
  
“I got my hand on his wand,” Guiche explained simply. “It took a bit of getting used to. His wasn’t much like mine. It was much narrower. But once I got a proper grip, it was pretty easy to leave him helpless on the floor like that. It’s all in the wrist movement, see?” He demonstrated by flicking the wandsword. "I might keep this, actually. Imagine the fun I could have with two."  
  
“You’ll pay for this!” Don Marikos ranted.  
  
“I could gag him,” Guiche suggested. “Stop him being a distraction.”  
  
“Guiche, you’re distracting me plenty,” Monmon said. “Go put some darn clothes on.”  
  
The boy blinked. “Oh,” he said, covering himself and dashing out.  
  
“You fools!” Don Marikos managed groggily, trying and failing to get his hands free. “My loyal, vicious and wicked mercenaries have this place surrounded. If you kill me, they’ll kill you all! Let me free and I’m prepared to take you captive, where I will ransom you off. That’s my final offer.”  
  
“Mercenaries,” Monmon said coldly. “I see.” She refilled the ice in the bucket. “Keep pressure on the wound,” she told Dani. “I’m just going to go out and deal with those mercenaries.”  
  
“All on your own?” Dani gasped.  
  
“I may be some time,” Monmon said simply.  
  
Dani sniffed in an aggressively manly way, and wiped his eyes on his lacy, blood-soaked cuff. “I’m… I’m sorry I called you barely adequate,” he muttered.  
  
Monmon let out a cold smile. “Oh, I think you’ll see why the group keeps me around. Beyond the fact that I’m the only one who’s any good at healing, that is.”  
  
She stepped outside, and then there was silence.

* * *

No more than five minutes later, she stepped back in, dusting off her hands. “They’re no longer a threat,” she said, frowning. “I wish there could have been another way, though.”  
  
“So fast?” Dani gasped.  
  
“Well, they were only mercenaries,” Monmon said casually.  
  
“They are the blackest-hearted fiends in all of Iberia! I refuse to believe you slew them all that quickly and silently!” Don Marikos announced.  
  
Monmon snorted. “Kill them? I _hired_ them. After all, their current employer - or rather; _previous_ employer - was our captive. We do have rather a lot of money. Though I hate to spend it like that.”  
  
“You! How could you do that!” Don Marikos gasped.  
  
“They’re mercenaries.”  
  
“Black-hearted elite killers who serve my every order.”  
  
“Mercenaries work for pay.”  
  
“They’ve been with me for almost two years! How could you convince them to betray me?”  
  
“Which bit of ‘mercenary’ did you not understand?” the blonde asked, with an annoyed flick of her hair. She went back to check on Kirche, and nodded with grim satisfaction. “Congratulations,” she told Kirche. “You’re probably not going to die today.”  
  
“Good,” Kirche whispered. “Have plans. Plus, Tabitha would kill me if I died on her.”  
  
Montmorency’s eyes narrowed. “Stop making this into a joke,” she ordered.  
  
“Aww. Monmon. Are you worried about… about me?”  
  
“I’m worried about you!” Dani snapped. “You… you…”  
  
Kirche reached out and patted her brother’s hand. “There, there,” she said. “You’re… you’re still going to be fourth in line.” She coughed. “And we’re taking you with us. Can’t have you running around. And they’ll need… need a fire mage. Even if you’re just a line rank.”  
  
Monmon bit back a comment about a twelve year old being ‘just’ a line. “Guiche! Are you dressed yet?”  
  
“Almost,” he called through, before emerging, hopping as he tried to do up his boots. Dani blushed at the sight of him.  
  
“I hired three hundred mercenaries to stop them killing us. We need a way to put them to use which means we’re getting our money’s worth.”  
  
Guiche frowned. “Why are you asking me?” he asked.  
  
“Because you have all these impractical large scale plans which would work if we had a few hundred loyal soldiers. And because I’m busy making sure Kirche doesn’t drop dead.”  
  
Kirche coughed. “Your bedside manner. Could do with work.”  
  
Guiche’s eyes lit up. “That’s wonderful,” he declared. “And… I think this is none other than Don Marikos. There’s quite a bounty out for him. The papacy put a price on his head.”  
  
“Oh, really?” Monmon said, some cheer entering her voice. “We might even manage to avoid losses from this night, then. Oh yes, Guiche, this is…”  
  
“Kirche’s little brother? Yes, the resemblance is clear,” Guiche said with a shrug.  
  
“Dani,” Dani squeaked, by way of introduction. “Father mentioned you.” He coughed, running a hand through his strawberry-blonde hair. “He said you had promise, for… despite how you looked.”  
  
Guiche smiled broadly. “He did? Wow. Kirche says that’s high praise from him. Hello, Danny,” he said. “Sorry we had to meet like this.” He turned back to Monmon. “Hmm. So we’ll want to get Kirche somewhere safe, and we also need to hand this villain over to the proper authorities.”  
  
“And collect the reward,” Monmon added, looking up from Kirche.  
  
“Presumably, then… well, we may need to escort this sacred treasure of Albion to a safe keeping place until the crown is restored.”  
  
“That’s a good point,” Monmon agreed. “That has to be worth another reward.”  
  
“And then maybe we can make best use of these mercenaries.” Guiche frowned. “I’ve never had mercenaries before. Gosh! This is exciting!”  
  
“And I suppose he did say they were blackhearted fiends…” Monmon said to herself.  
  
“… are you going to suggest we turn them in for the reward?”  
  
“What, me? Never!” Montmorency lied.


	39. Unnatural Philosophy 8-1

_“There are those so wicked, so invariably corrupt that they are overcome by mad lusts and so lie with beasts. From these are born the many horrors of the world. Those men who sate their lusts upon pigs produce the orcs. Those foolish girls who dally with horned beasts or creatures with cloven hooves gestate demons. Those who consort with snakes and reptiles may spawn a dragon; while cats and dogs make goblins. And of course, woe betide any who has carnal relations with a toad or a frog, for they will produce a Gallian.”_  
  
–  Mother Superior Blancmange of the Saint Michelle nunnery

* * *

“Oh, this is a sick _joke!_ ” Louise nearly exploded. Her voice would have echoed around the grand hall, had they actually been in the grand hall rather than a rather cosier and more comfortable room with lush red wall hangings and chairs with comfy cushions. A couple of minions with fans were positioned as inconspicuously as minions could be to keep the air circulating.  
  
In due respect to her elevated status and petite stature, Louise’s chair was somewhat higher than everyone else’s.  
  
It was breakfast time in the overlady’s citadel of uttermost blackhearted malevolence, or at least breakfast for everyone who wasn’t Cattleya. Louise’s older sister tended to emerge sometime in the late afternoon.  
  
A quiet little routine had settled in. After a certain amount of violence and shouting directed at the minions in charge of the kitchen, Louise had established a mutually acceptable menu which did not, in any way, involve cockroaches. She had found a smaller room which was more convenient than the Great Hall, and there were now rugs which meant they didn’t have to walk on the damnably cold stone floor. There were other creature comforts in here, including subscriptions to all the major journals, and it was the front page news on one of them which had produced that reaction.  
  
Louise threw the journal down on the cluttered table. This incautious action was enough to knock over Jessica’s drink, sending diluted-down wine spilling onto the floor.  
  
“Hey!” Jessica protested, as a minion scampered in to dry up the wine by lapping it up. “Watch it!”  
  
Louise jabbed her finger at the journal. “This! This is not possible! This… this is wrong! There… there is no way that _Guiche de Gramont_ is getting a headline in an Infernal journal when I didn’t get one for _kidnapping a princess_. Just because he stopped some minor villain who hasn’t done anything _I’ve_ heard of!” She slumped down, pouting. “That is… this shouldn’t be happening! It’s wrong!”  
  
Jessica’s eyes widened. “Oh, really?” she asked, scooting over to stare at the headline. “Oh wow,” Jessica said, grinning. “That _is_ a pretty wrong guy. He’s cute. Plus, he has the advantage of a quiet news day.” She frowned. “Kind of too pretty, though,” she added critically. “Kind of a bit girly. Cattleya might like him… well, no, probably not. She’s not the sort to take up with a man. Even a man as pretty as that.”  
  
“I should think not,” Louise said, crossing her arms. “My sister is a proper young lady, apart from her little issue. Involving herself with a man at an unprofessional level would be quite inappropriate for someone of her status. And this is _Guiche de Gramont_. He is a dreadful little… little oik!”  
  
Jessica opened her mouth and closed it again.  
  
“I’m not sure ‘drinking the blood of the living’ is a little issue, Louise Francoise,” Henrietta pointed out.  
  
“My family has a lot of very bad people in it,” Louise said quietly. She cupped her drink in both hands, swirling it. “Catt is far from the worst, and she does try to keep herself under control.”  
  
“Well, true,” Henrietta conceded. “Mine isn’t perfect either, honestly.”  
  
They both looked at Jessica, who shrugged.  
  
“Look, Dad’s the prince of the Incubi, my aunt is the effective ruler of the Abyss, I have too many cousins who all fuck people to steal their souls and lifeforce, and my granddad is the prime force of Evil in existence,” she said flatly, spreading her hands with a shrug. “What do you want me to say?” She reached out, giving them a hug. “But don’t worry! Just because my family is worse than yours doesn’t mean you can’t be really, really bad yourselves!”  
  
“Yes. Being the worst overlady ever is my goal in life,” Louise said quickly. “My ancestors would hate to see how bad I am at it. Or love it. I’m still working on my vocabulary of wickedness.”  
  
“I’m a very bad princess and my mother said I was evil and wicked and sinful,” Henrietta said, nodding rapidly in agreement. “I’m a naughty girl.”  
  
Jessica gave them a thumbs up. “That’s the spirit!” she said cheerfully. “Every day in every way, we can be worse and worse!”  
  
Louise squared her jaw. “Well, it is still… still completely unacceptable that Guiche de Gramont has managed to be front line news when I haven’t!” she declared, putting her hands on her hips – such as they were. “It’s just as well that my plans for Amstreldamme and that… that hussy, the Madame de Montespan, are nearly ready!”  
  
“Yay!” Henrietta cheered. “I have utmost trust in you, Louise Françoise, that your punishment for that dreadful woman will be fully appropriate! And I will be very thankful.”  
  
Louise blushed. “Well… um, uh, thank you,” she began, reaching out to refill her drink.  
  
“Yeah, congrats,” Jessica said.  
  
Louise cleared her throat. “And,” Louise said, trying to shake her fluster, “I expect you both in the preliminary planning session. That means _on time_ this time, Jessica.”  
  
Jessica’s face fell.  
  
“I even drew up an agenda this time,” Louise added proudly. “We’re going to have to think about the political ramifications of our forthcoming actions. There’s a special entry on the agenda and everything.”  
  
“You and your agenda politics,” Jessica muttered.

* * *

The Great Hall was dark, the burning braziers dimmed to almost nothing. A small stage had been set up at one end, with a slightly tattered curtain backing it.  
  
“Beetles?” Gnarl said, offering his bowl to Henrietta.  
  
The princess turned just a trifle pale. “One… one would not wish to deprive you of something you’re so clearly and enthusiastically and… and loudly enjoying,” she managed in her best regal tone.  
  
“Unfair enough,” Gnarl said, crunching loudly. “Beetle?” he asked Jessica.  
  
“Nah, I got popcorn,” she said, perched on her seat with her legs crossed.  
  
“I’ll take one!” Cattleya said happily, taking one. “I’ll add him to my pet collection! Actually, no! I said ‘him’, but I was wrong! It’s a girl beetle! You can tell from the differently shaped thorax!” she told Henrietta earnestly.  
  
“I see. How interesting,” Henrietta said faintly.  
  
“I know!” Cattleya told her with a disturbingly enthusiastic smile. “Do you know how many different kinds of beetle there are? I have a quite extensive collection, and it’s got much more extensive since I arrived here! Do you know, there are species of beetle living in this tower which I’ve never seen before? I’m going to need a new cabinet, because some of the insects are as large as my head, or even larger!”  
  
“Giant beetles is very tasty,” Scyl said dreamily. “Tastes like beetle. Like chicken. Chicken taste like beetle.”  
  
“Chicken eggs is yummier than beetle eggs, though,” Maxy said, licking his lips.  
  
Fettid snorted. “You is dumb,” she told him sniffily, wiping her nose on her sleeve.  
  
“Gosh,” Henrietta said. “Oh, look, I do believe Louise is almost ready. We should all stop talking. Because it would be rude. Yes.”  
  
Fully clad in her steel plate, the overlady strode up to the front of the hall and onto the low stage, clanking as she went. Her flowing pink hair was artfully tossed, carefully spilling down onto her front, and the metal of her armour was polished to a sinister gleam. From the right angle, faint glowing runes could be seen beneath the surface of the metal, hinting at darker things. A long surcoat lay over the shining steel, dark enough red to seem almost black, trimmed in silver and with intricate and subtly malevolent designs woven into the flowing cloth.  
  
Her aura of malevolent dignity was somewhat ruined when she produced a set of notes from an inner pocket and gave them an intense once-over.  
  
“Oh, that new surcoat is awesome,” Jessica said to herself in a self-congratulatory tone of voice. “I’m _so_ great. Look, the pockets don’t disrupt the cut at all!”  
  
Louise clasped her hands together. “E-everyone!” she announced, trying to conceal she was shaking. “We are now entering a new phase of str-strategic operations!” With those words, the great blackboard was wheeled behind her by a gaggle of minions. Some small readjustment of its position left it facing the right way, and Maggat saluted and then herded the other minions off stage.  
  
Pointing at the map of Tristain drawn on the blackboard with her staff, Louise cleared her throat. “This is the n-nation of Tristain! Its Regency Council are our enemies! The comte de Mott is already dead! Now we… we begin work on overthrowing the Madame de Montespan! She is the de facto ruler of Amstreldamme, because the duke is senile, and via her influence the greatest magical university in Halkeginia – and it is the best, no matter what those idiots in Roma say! – she supports the Regency Council!  
  
“This is a problem! We will r-resolve this problem in the way we solve all problems! By killing her! Especially because the Madame de Montespan is said to be the mistress of Viscount Wardes, who is an unfaithful treacherous dog who jumps off into another woman’s bed less than a season after his fiancée went tragically missing! Can you believe that man!” Louise scowled, getting rather red in the face. “No shame at all! None! He’s a treacherous dog… no, a weasel! A weasel dog! Some horrible blasphemous product of magical experimentation which h-has all the worst features of both animals, and none of the good ones! And more flaws on top of it!” She took a deep breath. “And that is why the death of his mistress, who is also a traitor, must happen! We shall kill her and take every last thing she values in the world! Um. And more!”  
  
There was a round of thunderous applaud from the minions, who didn’t understand most of the long words Louise had used, but did grasp that the end goals were murder and looting.  
  
“So proud of her,” Gnarl muttered, dabbing of the corner of his eye with a crusted old blackened handkerchief.  
  
Louise gestured somewhat frantically at Maggat, until the minions flipped the blackboard over to display a more detailed map of the area around Amstreldamme, speckled with annotations. “If you… um, look here, you will see that there is an old relay tower just off the coast, which used to serve as a lighthouse, but now is occupied by p-pirates,” she said curtly. “We will capture that, and then use that to allow us to attack the new foundries being built just outside the city. This will slow the Council’s plans to expand the military, and by pillaging their resources, we can transport vital components back to the tower, for Jessica to repair and bring into operation. However, that step is less vital than taking them out of the hands of the Council. If we cannot capture the foundries intact, we will burn them to the ground! Once we have achieved that, I will re-examine the situation.”  
  
There was another round of thunderous applause from the minions.  
  
“Any questions?” Louise concluded, ending on a high note.  
  
Igni raised his hand enthusiastically. “Oooh! Oooh! Overlady!” he said, bouncing up and down.  
  
“Yes?” Louise said a trifle dubiously.  
  
“I is wanting to be knowing how much of this are going to be about the boomy and how much about the looting,” Igni said. “What are for looting and so no boomy are allowed near it?”  
  
That was a surprisingly intelligent and cogent point by the standards of minionkind, Louise was forced to concede. Yes, it might have addressed the two main interests of the red-skinned minions, but at least it showed an understanding that there were things which should not be blown up. This was behaviour she really needed to encourage in her underlings.  
  
“Some things will allow more… ahem, ‘boomy’ than others,” she answered, with an inward sigh at the fact that she was getting used to minion vernacular. “I need the relay tower intact. However, as I said, if it turns out we can’t reclaim the foundry equipment, I want the entire works destroyed.”  
  
Igni nodded solidly, obviously pleased by the words ‘entire works destroyed’.  
  
Jessica raised a hand. “Oooh! Yeah, there was totally that thing about Amstreldamme,” she said. “It’s an… what’s the word? Anychrome?”  
  
“I beg your pardon?” Louise asked.  
  
“Anycrom? Anagram? No, no… ah! Yes, anachronism! That’s the thing. It’s anachronistically advanced compared to the rest of your surface world. It’s got gas lighting and flushing toilets and they do things with electricity. It’s almost as advanced as some backwards areas of the Abyss in some ways.”  
  
“No doubt because of the many wicked souls which reside there,” Louise said coldly. “The Infernal influence upon that city is well-documented. It does not surprise me that the Madame de Montespan centres her operations there. The entire city – and its university – is very lax when it comes to enforcement of Church law. Is it any surprise that Evil ideas from the Abyss come to dominate there?”  
  
“Yeah,” Jessica said, nodding. “Well, totally makes sense. If you’re going to go spend time in a proper civilised place like the Abyss, ideas leak out and once you go back to your backwards home, you’re going to want to bring the hallmarks of actual proper culture with you. You know, like demon summoning and iron horses and gas lighting and stuff.”  
  
Louise fumed at that remark. But on the inside. There was nothing civilised about demon summoning!  
  
“Amstreldamme has been purged for heresy no fewer than four times, and they excommunicated the city once,” Henrietta contributed. “In the reign of my… uh, possibly my great-great-aunt – there was some question of the parentage there – the entire city was consumed with a maelstrom of Evil energy and several sections had to be razed entirely to cleanse the taint. Fortunately, once they had set some flammable areas of the city on fire, the sin could be cleansed through penance and tithes, and it was de-excommunicated as per Church doctrine.”  
  
“Yeah, that was a partial summoning of my granddad,” Jessica agreed. “It’s a pretty rad place for a surface place. Great place. I’d love to spend more time there. It’s way less boring than Bruxelles which – no offense meant – is totally the most boring city ever, apart from Genevois, which is just blurgh.”  
  
“I spent nine months stuffed in a tower. It was very boring,” Henrietta said quietly. “Maybe I should move the capital to Amstreldamme when I take the throne. I don’t like Bruxelles much anymore.”  
  
“Oh, that’d be kickass,” Jessica said happily. “I tried to persuade Dad that he should open a franchise there, but he seems okay in quasi-retirement and has to stay close to the centre of power.”  
  
Louise cleared her throat. “Excuse me?” she said forcefully, tapping her foot and waiting for them to quieten down again. “Did you have a point, Jessica?”  
  
“Well, I was just checking that you know ‘bout that kinda stuff,” Jessica said, shrugging. “Because, you know, there’s a bunch of stuff you can get from crafters there which is better than anything else you’ll get outside the Abyss or elven lands.”  
  
“I do know that,” Louise said, putting her hands on her lips. “Believe me, I have… plans for the alchemy district.”  
  
There was more applause from the minions, who liked that kind of plan.  
  
“Shut up! Stop applauding literally everything I say!”

* * *

In the dim of the library, Louise hid behind a protective fortress of books. She was just about over her stage fright, but she had skipped lunch because she didn’t feel like eating.  
  
She slumped forwards as a memory surfaced too late to be of any use. “I forgot to hand out the agenda,” she muttered to herself. She’d prepared it and everything. And now Jessica was going to be smug about it.  
  
She’d just had stage fright. And… Founder, she’d been going on and on about Viscount Wardes and even though he was a treacherous dog and he was a traitor and… and she hated him, she probably shouldn’t have gone on about it like that?  
  
It wasn’t like she was jealous of the Madame de Montespan. She hated her. And Wardes, too. Stupid Wardes.  
  
“Louise Françoise!” Henrietta called out from somewhere on the other side of her impenetrable literary walls. “Are you in here? The minions told me to look for you here!”  
  
Louise considered not answering, but reluctantly decided she had to speak up. “I’m here,” she said. “I’m… um, working.”  
  
Henrietta swept up to her, plonking herself down right next to Louise on her oversized chair. “Oh, Louise Françoise,” she said, “you really don’t like public speaking, do you?”  
  
“You could tell?” Louise asked guiltily. Henrietta felt far, far too close, and very warm in her black dress which wasn’t covering enough. She’d inhaled in surprise when the older girl had sat down, and the scent of her perfume had done an impressive job in making her completely forget what she’d been reading.  
  
Henrietta laughed, giving Louise a hug. “You were shaking, I could see!” she said. She brushed a strand of hair away from Louise’s face. “You were hiding behind your hair, too! And blushing! You’re still blushing, in fact! It’s very obvious when you get nervous!”  
  
Louise blushed, and hated herself for it.  
  
“It’s actually really adorable!” Henrietta said. “It’s cute!”  
  
This only intensified the blush. “I am working at it,” Louise said quickly. “I’m… I’m still not very good at public speaking. I never really practiced it before, and I wasn’t very good at it at school.”  
  
Shaking out her hair, Henrietta let out a sigh. “They drilled me on it, over and over and over again,” she said sadly. “It would have been nicer to go to the Academy, I think. At least I’d have been there with you.”  
  
Louise nodded. “It is nice having you around,” she said politely, trying to keep her mind on… on something which wasn’t Henrietta. It was a welcome relief when her friend rose and started poking around at the bookshelves. “What are you doing?” Louise asked curiously.  
  
Henrietta shifted awkwardly. “I wanted to see what the books were like in here,” she said. “The ones in my room… well, they all seem to be novels, which I suppose is good enough, but this place looked much larger.”  
  
Louise gave a self-effacing shrug. “They’re mostly ‘work’ books,” she said, letting her tongue click around the word ‘work’. “Nothing very interesting. Books of geography, history, evil magic, politics, things like that.” She sighed. “And a lot of them have wicked lies and mistruths in them,” she added irritably. “I can’t trust them half the time.”  
  
“Sorry, what was the third one you said?” Henrietta asked. “Evil magic?”  
  
Louise turned pink. “Evil manipulation! Evil manipulation!” she said hastily. No, no, she didn’t want Henrietta realising that she enjoyed researching new evil spells to aid her in her disguise – which was of course the only reason she read up on them and had spent quite a lot on expanding her collection of dread grimoires. She couldn’t have Henrietta thinking ill of her. The thought of that made her heart feel like it was splitting in two.  
  
“That didn’t sound like ‘manipulation’,” Henrietta said dubiously.  
  
“It was! It was!” she protested.  
  
Henrietta smoothed down her dress and looked around. “Well, it is a bit cluttered in here,” she said, clearly trying to move on.  
  
The change in subject was welcome. “Ah. Well.” Louise coughed into her hand. It wasn’t that bad, really. She flinched slightly as a pile of books collapsed onto a minion. “I’ve bought a lot of books,” she said. “I mean, a lot. No, really, a lot. Especially at first before anyone else moved in, it was the only thing to do. And… well, minions are the worst librarians ever.”  
  
“Oh? Even worse than Justin the Pyromaniac, last Custodian of the Great Library of Rhacotis?”  
  
“… possibly not quite that bad,” Louise admitted, “or at least not that bad since I banned reds from here. But almost all of them are illiterate! And the smarter ones don’t really _get_ cataloguing. They tend to file all books under B, for ‘book’. Or sometimes F, for ‘fing what have squiggles in’.” Louise said that with all the disgust of a housemaid picking up a dead rat with tongs. “Sometimes ‘S’ for ‘Shiny’, if it has a pretty cover.”  
  
“I was wondering why those sections were quite that large,” Henrietta admitted. “Oh, Louise Françoise! You work so very hard, and so thanklessly. It’s almost summer, isn’t it? Your birthday should be soon. I should get you something nice! To show how much I appreciate you!”  
  
“Y-your thanks are enough, your… um, highness,” Louise managed.  
  
Henrietta nodded. “Well, unless you let me go pillage some places – and that was a joke – I’m afraid thanks are all I can afford.” Henrietta shook her head in mock sorrow. “It’s dreadful being a poor royal, though I suppose at least I get room and board here.” She paused. “That is the commoner term for such things, isn’t it?”  
  
“Uh. I… maybe?” Louise tried, having a similar lack of experience in how the underclasses lived. “Anyway!” Louise said, “returning to our previous topic, I’ll be more than willing to help you find something interesting and not at all hazardous or evil. I wouldn’t want you tarnished, your highness, by the things I must do.”  
  
Henrietta sighed. “I suppose you’re right,” she said, almost to herself, slumping down. She straightened up again, adjusting her hair. “You should probably show me which areas are fine for me to read, then, and which ones I should avoid. So I know not to go near them.”  
  
Louise was more than happy to show Henrietta to where the more acceptable books were kept, insofar as the library was organised at all. With a sigh, she got back to work, only disrupted by periodic crashes as minions had piles of heavy tomes fall on their heads. That was slightly alarming, actually. The minions’ heads might damage the books. Founder damn it, why was her heart feeling so confused? Clearly she would have to arrange for another courting date with Emperor Lee so she wouldn’t be missing male company and be having… um, thoughts about Henrietta she should only be having about men. Curse her wicked heritage that led her to getting confused feelings about the princess she had kidnapped.  
  
Louise threw herself into her work to distract herself from the… the wrong thoughts she was having, and managed to cover a good hundred pages on the fortifications of Amstreldamme before Cattleya sat down on the table opposite to her, and started writing.  
  
“Uh… Louise,” Cattleya asked, after a while. “Sorry to bother you, but… question?”  
  
“Mmm?”  
  
“How do you spell ‘inadequate’?”  
  
“Uh… i-n-a-d-e-q-u-a-t-e.”  
  
“Okay, okay. And… um, rationalisations?”  
  
“That’s… rat-i-o-n-al-i-sat-i-o-n-s. I think. Cattleya?” Louise asked, frowning. “What are you doing, and why are you using words you normally never use?”  
  
Her sister looked up. “Book report,” she said.  
  
“I beg your pardon?”  
  
“A book report! For my cult! We all have to read books and report back on them,” Cattleya said happily.  
  
“Your… cult?”  
  
Cattleya sighed. “Louise,” she said chidingly. “Remember, silly? I joined a cult on the way back from Bruxelles! Now I have to do book reports because we discuss the books we’ve read since the last meeting and critique them!”  
  
Louise put down her pen. “Catt,” she asked, “what kind of book is it? Because if it’s an evil book which will summon some kind of dark god, I really won’t be happy with you. And neither will Mother or Father. I _expressly_ forbid you to summon any dark gods! Do I make myself clear?”  
  
Her sister pouted. “Give me some credit,” she said. “I made sure to check that the cult wasn’t doing anything really super-bad! If they were doing that, I’d totally have killed them all and drank their blood and then cut the bodies into lots of itty bitty bits and thrown them in a lake just in case any of them were secretly vampires too! Although I probably would have tasted it if they were vampires because other vampires are like the jolly nicest-est tasting thing ever!” She paused. “Of course if it hadn’t been so incredibly shockingly dreadfully bad that I had to do it _right now_ or else Evil would win forever I’d honestly have asked you first,” she added hastily. “But it’s not a very bad cult!”  
  
Louise groaned. “Catt…” she said piteously.  
  
“It’s fine! I didn’t kill anyone so you don’t need to be angry at me, little sister!” Cattleya cleared her throat. “Anyway! It’s not a really really bad cult! It’s just young noblewomen with boring husbands – usually really old ones too! I’m so glad I didn’t get married off like that! I’d hate to be married to some old _man_! – who get together and talk about books…”  
  
There was a lingering little bit of doubt, Louise felt, that her sister had actually joined a cult, rather than a reading club.  
  
“… and then worship Femin-Anark and Athe a bit! But they’re very respectable dark gods! None of them have any tentacles at all! And there’s no slime or anything, and Athe only approves of animal sacrifice if you then eat it! Or if you’re using the sacrificed animal to study anatomy!”  
  
Louise did have to concede that no respectable gods had tentacles. “You still haven’t told me what the book is,” she said.  
  
“Oh! Right!” Cattleya said. “It’s A La Carte’s ‘Metaphysical Meditations - In which the existence of Good and Evil and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated’! Of course, it’s not right, according to Jessica! She says that you can burn souls for fuel. But I have an immortal soul! It’s trapped in my body. Which makes you think, doesn’t it? Why is the soul indestructible when it’s bound eternally in dead flesh, but so easy to burn when it’s on its own? Jessica says burning souls releases lots and lots of magic which can be used, too!”  
  
It didn’t make Louise think. “Well, have fun,” she said distractedly, getting back to work. She turned. “And don’t summon any dark gods,” she added.  
  
“Oh, I am having fun!” Cattleya said gleefully, apparently ignoring the warning about dark gods. “It’s wonderful! I get to meet people in the cult! People who aren’t related to me and who like books and… and aren’t servants!” She squared her jaw. “I can’t believe I was missing out on all these things being stuck at home for years and years and years,” she said. “It’s great! Some of the girls are even my age! I’d have… I’d have known them as friends if I went to the Academy of Magic! Of course they don’t know who I am because I keep my disguise on,” she added hastily, “and I never take it off. No matter what. Trust me, I make sure to keep my mask on and! And and and! I wear hair dye, now! When I go there, I mean! Obviously I just make it go rot off when I’m bored! But everyone expects vampires to be all seductive and dark and pink hair doesn’t work too well with all that.  
  
“Well, that’s something, at least,” Louise said, feeling a little better about the state of affairs.  
  
“You should probably dye your hair! Pink isn’t a good choice for evil overladies either!”  
  
Louise squared her jaw. “I am not about to do that,” she told her sister.  
  
“Why not?”  
  
She blinked. “Because… because it’s my _hair,_ ” Louise said, feeling greatly offended.  
  
“Dye comes out.”  
  
“I don’t care. It’s mine. I’m not going to dye it.”  
  
Cattleya shook her head, running her hand along the bookshelf. “You’re not getting _weird_ about your hair again, are you?” she asked, tilting her head.  
  
“Catt. Stop bothering me,” Louise said.  
  
“Oh no, you can’t drive me off by being grumpy! You are! You’re getting weird about it again!”  
  
“I don’t know what you mean!” Louise snapped.  
  
“Oh, you know very well,” Cattleya said, with a feline and prominently incisored smile. “The same weird about your hair you got with Eleanor all the time when you were little.”  
  
“I am not listening to you.”  
  
“You used to rub it in her face that you had hair like Mother and she was blonde.”  
  
“Catt,” Louise said warningly.  
  
“Literally rub it in her face.”  
  
“Catt!”  
  
“You got it in her eyes and then she’d chase you and then you’d come back and do it again when she didn’t expect it.”  
  
“I’m warning you…” Louise began, beginning to blush.  
  
“And then you started asking her if she was really Mother’s child, rather than some bastard of Father’s. And everyone was very surprised that you’d heard that word _and_ were using it correctly. Eleanor wasn’t happy at all! She made the ceiling go soft and hung up there by your ankles! They had to get father to get you down because she refused to do so!”  
  
Louise rose to her feet, clutching her papers protectively as if they could shield her from her sister’s total inability to know when to shut up. “This conversation is over! I’m going to my room! I have a headache! I need peace and quiet!” she announced, as she stormed out.  
  
But as she left, Cattleya’s words trailed after her. “And it was in front of everyone at her thirteenth birthday party, too!”

* * *

“Yes,” Gnarl said, stroking his goatee as he watched the scene through his crystal ball. “Her parents may have missed the signs, but to a trained eye like mine, they are very obvious.”  
  
“I no can see signpost,” Fettid observed, dusting with a feather duster which had nails stuck into it in case she saw a rat she needed to splat.  
  
Gnarl ignored the casual stupidity of his underlings. “The blossoming signs of such great Evil are plain to see! Such a wealth of depravity! The overlady, so careful to pick the point for maximum possible embarrassment for her elder sister – and she would have been only three at the time! No doubt she planned it for weeks in advance!” He frowned. “Though the Evil of the de la Vallière family is also present in her elder sister, it seems. Inventive and improvised cruelty, yes.”  
  
“Why she no hit overlady with club?” Fettid pointed out. “Better way of making her shut up.”  
  
“Ah,” Gnarl said, “because that is the difference between your Evil, Fettid, which is stupid and brutal, and the Evil of a potential overlady. Her elder sister seems to be showing such signs, too.” He popped a cockroach in his mouth, and chewed noisily. “My investigations have confirmed that her sister is indeed resident in Amstreldamme,” he said. “I do believe that their reunion may well be… interesting.”  
  
“Are that the kind of long pause ‘in-ter-est-ing’ what you do when you smile all evil like and do that thingie with your handies?” Fettid asked, as she splatted a rat with her feather duster.  
  
“Yes, it is,” Gnarl said, rubbing his hands together with evil glee.


	40. Unnatural Philosophy 8-2

_“It is… trying being my husband’s wife. His very presence makes my skin crawl. Fortunately, he is more than willing to chase after the maids when I have a headache from spending too long in the same room as him and his constant shouting. I would like to free my daughters from the cruel constraints he has imposed on them, but I fear what he would do to me if I forced him to accept the truth about them. What’s worse is that some of them prefer to act like he wants them to! It sickens me – but of course I cannot let my true feelings about him and his actions show. So I smile, mouth my prayers for his good health, and wait for him to run off again on some new quest.”_  
  
–  Francesca Juliet Helen Georgia Phosphene von Zerbst (née l’Ussuria)

* * *

It was dimly lit in the inner chambers of the van Rien estate, and a few lonely glowstones lit the room in a sinister dim light. Goblets full of red liquid gleamed in the gloom. Hooded figures sat around the circular table, listening to one of their number, who stood with a tome on the table before her.  
  
“The narrative was trite and moralising, the character development was positively negative because the lead female literally lost interesting traits as the story went on, and there was no nuance at all in the narrative arc!” the standing woman proclaimed loudly, jabbing a finger at the book. “I can only conclude that the intended market for this… this pulp is people with the literary grasp of a dead seal!”  
  
“My goodness,” another one with a few blonde locks escaping her hood, one hand going to her mouth. “So you wouldn’t recommend ‘Instructions on the Correct Behaviour For A Goodly Wife, With Manifold Examples Of How Sin Might Be Averted’, Magdalene?”  
  
She received a withering stare in response. “No, I wouldn’t, Jacqueline,” Lady Magdalene van Delft told her fellow sister-in-darkness. “I would say that it is pap, utter pap, and it would be better that every copy be burned than one remain to be read by those who might take its message to heart!” By the end, her face was visibly quite red, despite her long black hooded cloak. “We should work within the shadows to ban it forever, and destroy all copies of the printing plates! That will surely lead to the triumph of Evil forever! And if not that, at least no one else will need to read this pulp!”  
  
“That’d be nice,” Comtesse Jacqueline van Rien said placidly. She perked up. “And I think sometimes you prefer finding books you can tear apart, so it’s good that you’re enjoying yourself. Oh! I forgot! I had the servants make cakes! And I got black goats for Carmine! Is anyone hungry? The Midnight Ritual is soon, and we should all have a proper meal beforehand!” She coughed, maternally, and took off her long black cloak, folding it neatly and hanging it over the back of her high-backed chair. “Now, I’m sorry, but I’m just going to have to check on the children and make sure the maids have put them to bed properly. Jacques makes such a fuss if he isn’t tucked in with his woollen lamb, you know. And then we can look towards invoking the third aspect of Femin, if the signs are right.”  
  
With their host gone, the cabal of upper-class, well-educated and very bored youngish women-slash-conspirators-slash-cabalites-of-dark-gods got down to their base-state. Namely, gossiping, chatting, and enjoying time away from their husbands and children.  
  
“I really liked your report, Carmine,” the conveniently newly-widowed Vicomtesse de Anoun said to Cattleya. “We don’t get enough people who like reading philosophy. Magdalene likes her natural philosophy, of course, but it isn’t the same.”  
  
Cattleya beamed, her half-mask concealing her features. “I liked it too, Maria!” she said happily. “I look forwards to these meetings! It’s jolly nice to get together with people, you know!”  
  
Maria grinned back at her. “Oh, I know,” she said. “And now my husband is dead – thank you very much for that, by the way – I can host them! He was just dreadful, you know. He was always very… demanding about his husbandly ‘rights’, but he wouldn’t let me have any guests at all. I only got to go to these things because I told him that they were prayer meetings.”  
  
Cattleya nodded agreeably. “You didn’t lie,” she said, the flickering lights lighting her face from below.  
  
“I know, right?” Maria said. She picked up her wine-filled goblet, and sipped it. “He never asked which god I was praying to.”  
  
Picking up her goblet, Cattleya swirled it around. Or at least attempted to. The other members of the cult were always very accommodating about her dietary requirements, but the thing that blood sitting on goblets tended to do was congeal. She was vaguely aware that her paternal grandmother once infamously used to bathe in the blood of pretty young women, but – quite apart from the fact that Cattleya could think of much better uses for both the blood and the pretty young women – she really wasn’t sure how the blood stayed runny when filling the bath. And it’d go cold, too, and cold blood was _nasty_.  
  
She did vaguely wonder if the blood of old women could be used to make one look older, and whether Louise would be interested in that, but she caught herself and stopped. That was a naughty thought! She shouldn’t be making fun of her little sister like that!   
  
Oh, and she also shouldn’t be thinking about filling a bath with the blood of old people. That was also wrong.  
  
“Excuse me!” a voice said from behind her, interrupting the talk. Cattleya recognised the constantly-exasperated tone of Lady Magdalene. “Carmine, I feel we must take the chance to talk.”  
  
Cattleya smiled up at the other woman. “Of course, my lady,” she said sweetly. All around them, some of the other members of the cult were backing away from the confrontation, trying to look like they weren’t involved, or in some cases spontaneously comparing baby pictures.  
  
Magdalene jabbed one finger at her, stepping in closer. Her heels clicked on the marble floor. “This is a non-political group and I won’t let you use us in your master’s power plays!” she said accusingly. “You’re not going to ruin this for us!”  
  
As worshippers of Anark, they were of course devoted to overthrowing the nobility and certainly didn’t have leaders themselves because they were all equal. However, Cattleya had noticed that Magdalene seemed to be the most equal of all of them, which sort of made her the leader. Well, it wasn’t so much that she was a leader, because she didn’t really _lead_. She mostly organised who’d be hosting the next meeting, and then complained loudly about books and tried to persuade them to work in the shadows to ban things she thought were badly written. And loudly criticised people when she felt they were doing it wrong. Which was quite often.  
  
Honestly, she reminded Catt of her big sister.  
  
“Magdalene,” Maria said, plaintively. “Please don’t make a fuss.”  
  
“I am certainly going to make a fuss!” Magdalene, producing several groans from all around the hall. “Do you want a repeat of what… what _that woman_ did? Utterly shameless!”  
  
“It’s not the same,” Maria protested. “Carmine is nice! She’s not a cold wet fish.” She paused. “Well, she’s cold, but that’s not her fault.”  
  
“I warm up when I drink blood,” Cattleya said helpfully.  
  
“See! She warms up when she drinks blood,” Maria said, crossing her arms and nodding emphatically.  
  
Magdalene glared at the two of them, her eyes narrowed and her mouth a thin line. “That has nothing to do with my objections to politicising our group and you know it, Maria!” she hissed, leaning forwards. Her hood fell forwards over her eyes. She yanked it out of the way. “That’s a fallacious argument! We’re all equal here, and that means there’s no way at all I’m letting you ruin what we have just because you’ve been… associating with a vampire. Remember, she works for an overlady! And overladies never think small!”  
  
Cattleya wasn’t sure what followers of Anark thought of organisers. She suspected that they were probably inclined to look poorly on them, but without someone to do those things, they wouldn’t get done. And then they wouldn’t have somewhere to meet and that would just be dreadful. It was probably fine for peasant who worshipped Anark to meet in a remote barn at an altar of their inverted bull-head icon, but it wouldn’t be done for well-bred ladies to do that.   
  
Anyway, this cabal also worshipped Athe and Femin, and being too devoted to Anark might offend the others. They weren’t working very hard at overthrowing the nobility, which Cattleya agreed with. Quite apart from the fact that she was rather in favour of the nobility, they’d have to do a lot more work than just reading some books and discussing them to do that. And she went to these meetings to socialise and get away from Louise shouting at her about teeny tiny accidents like maybe perhaps slightly murdering three squadrons of cavalrymen, their horses, and their hunting dogs.  
  
It was jolly unfair! They’d attacked her first! Just because of the colour of her skin and eyes (chalk white and glowing red, respectively).  
  
“I’m sure L… the overlady would like to discuss any coordination with her plans you might want to do, but I’m here on my own,” Cattleya said, gesturing politely to the seat next to her and sitting herself. “If that’s something you’re worried about, there’s no need for that! I like meeting people! And books! Not as much as my sisters like books – I think they’d marry them if, you know, Pope Aegis VII hadn’t purged the reforms of his degenerate predecessor from the Church – but I like them.”  
  
“No,” Lady Magdalene said bluntly, refusing to sit. “There is not the slightest chance we’re going to get involved in such… overt actions again. _L'affaire des poisons_ was bad enough, and let me tell you, we kicked out the person responsible for it! We have lives of our own we need to protect, and we will not be pawns for some… some upstart overlady!”  
  
Cattleya pouted.  
  
Lady Magdalene wagged her finger at her. “No!” she said sharply. “Bad vampire! Pouting doesn’t work when Jacqueline does it, and _she_ doesn’t expose her fangs when she does it! Uh, not that she has fangs. Of course.”  
  
Maria scowled. “Lay off her,” she demanded, leaning forwards. “And for goodn… badness sake, just sit down and stop making a fuss. You’re embarrassing yourself in front of everyone!”  
  
Magdalene drew a deep breath, and let it out slowly. She sat. “I am not going to let us be turned into some pawn. This is the only chance some of us have to get out of the house and she – or her mistress – will not ruin it for us. Any of us! Remember what _she_ nearly did!”  
  
“I know you got burned worse than me and I understand this! Really, Mag, I do! But the Lady Carmine is different! She’s not-”  
  
Cattleya raised a hand, secretly very pleased that Maria had come to her defence. Wasn’t that nice of her? “No, no, she’s right,” she said respectfully, ignoring the little voice in her head which suggested that she should probably grab Magdalene by the throat and then shake her around a bit. And drink quite a bit of her blood, of course. That was a naughty voice. “The overlady has no interest in you. She just considers it nice that I have a hobby – oh… um, she did tell me that she will be very very unhappy with me if we summon any evil dark gods with tentacles to eat the world, but apart from that, she doesn’t really care.”  
  
“Well, of course,” Maria said. “Dark gods with tentacles are so dreadfully nouveau riche – at best! At worst they’ll leave you pregnant with their unholy spawn – and only peasants would welcome that!” She shuddered elegantly. “There is such thing as _respectability_ in heresy and blasphemy. I approve of your overlady’s standards _there_.”  
  
Lady Magdalene had focussed on another part of what Cattleya had said. “Oh, so we’re not bad enough for her?” she demanded, crossing her arms.  
  
“Oh, no,” Cattleya reassured her. “She just has different… priorities to you.”

* * *

On a small island off the north coast of Tristain, terrible things lurked on a wind-swept gravel beach. The crashing waves of the ocean beat down on the islet, throwing spray up over the things which waited among the stones. What foul purposes could such beasts have? What dark and malevolent goal could they be working towards?  
  
“I think this rockie is the tastiest one I is eating at the moment!”  
  
“Nuh uh! This one is betterer! It no hurt teethies!”  
  
“That are because it are drifty wood, stoopid!”  
  
These two shadowy figures were picked up by their heads, and slammed together a few times. “Shhh,” Maggat informed the two dazed Minions. He glanced up at the shadow of the ruined relay tower, and the firelights from the pirate encampment built around it. “Blues,” he said softly, “this are a very sneaky mission. We is needing to be in place before overlady are flying overhead. So now is sneakytime. Maxy, are the crate all hidy-like yet?”  
  
Maxy, who in compliance with threats of massive violence had removed the strings from his lute, saluted. “The crate are hidden in a cavey,” he said.  
  
“There no are water troll in cave no more,” Fettid said helpfully. “But there are body of water troll. Now I is feeling better after nasty ride in box across water.” She sighed. “We are making big big saccry fices for overlady.”  
  
“I is thinking that a cratey is just like a tiny boaty when pulled by minions,” Maxy said. “And overlady are needing us to keep the blues from being dumb-dumb.”  
  
On that, the three of them were in full agreement. Blue-skinned minions were prone to stupidity of a more abstract nature than other minions, and required firm watching from other minions to stop them from spending too long staring at the pretty lights of their magic. That meant their presence here was a vital part of the plan of the forces of Evil, or at least this specific force of Evil.  
  
Louise de la Vallière, ultimate force of darkness, had once again devised one of the strategic feats of brilliance that she was becoming infamous for. Namely, through observation of minionkind and their casual attitude to death she had realised that the best way to get a crack force of minions onto an island was to have the blue-skinned minions swim over dragging a few supervisors in a waterproof box, and then push the other minions out of a high-flying airship.  
  
They died on impact, of course, but the blues were there to remedy that state of affairs.  
  
Jessica had wanted to call it a High-Altitude-No-Opening drop, but Jessica said things like that a lot. Louise had dubbed it the Lead Skull Stratagem, on the grounds that testing had revealed that nearly eighty percent of minions dropped from a high-flying airship landed head first.  
  
Advanced testing was still in progress to determine as to whether a minion holding a barrel filled with gunpowder and nails could be trained through practice to set it off just before impact. Once again, her forgemistress had tried to call that a smart bombard, but Louise had rubbished that suggestion too because nothing which used a minion as a guidance system could be called 'smart'.  
  
And with no warning, a minion landed on the beach and left a bloody mess in the centre of the sandy crater.  
  
“Ah,” Scyl said happily, ambling over with his webbed hands in his stolen trousers. “Overlady are starting with fun jumpiness. Unless minion fall over side. Maybe I no bring him back if he just fall over side, if it no are part of plan.”  
  
Maggat shook his head. “Overlady be star cast tick at us if we no bring him back,” he said firmly. “No one want star casting.”  
  
“It burny,” Fettid agreed, as more flailing forms fell from the heavens.  
  
“Oh look,” Scyl pointed out happily. “It are raining minions!”

* * *

The pirates did not expect an attack from the land, and anyway were mostly inebriated, asleep or both. As a result, with somewhat alarming rapidity they had transitioned from being dead drunk to being dead drunks  
  
Up in the sky, cloak tucked tight around her armoured form to keep out the chill, Louise focussed on the map before her. The enchanted parchment before her was changing colour as her forces rampaged through the encampment, killing and stealing and almost certainly drinking everything even vaguely alcoholic that they found. Fortunately, their minds were so tiny that the alcohol missed it, and so being rascally drunk did not appreciably affect their capacity to follow orders.  
  
“We killed all the pie rats in the docks!” Maggat announced happily, his voice coming out of the Gauntlet. “They no can run away. Some of the boaties are on fire, but it that no is our fault at all, honest. There was a burny mage and she have many drinkies and then she try to burny the reds. It no work, but she hit the boaties.”  
  
“I has a new pretty red dress,” Fettid contributed. “It now are even redder than it was when burny mage was wearing it. And have stylish knify cuts.”  
  
Louise gritted her teeth. She had wanted those boats. They might only have been seaships, not windships, but she could have used them productively against harbours along the north coast.  
  
The Gauntlet rang like a bell. She grated her teeth. She didn’t need a distraction like this right now. Nevertheless, she touched it and said, “Hello?” Jessica’s glowing ghostly magical projection appeared, flickering slightly. “I’m busy right now-”  
  
“You know, Lou, I have an idea!” Jessica said quickly, “Maybe these pirates might be more useful alive than dead!”  
  
“Don’t call me that,” Louise said automatically, before her brain kicked into gear. “And I fail to see how a dead pirate is not a good pirate.”  
  
“Exactly! With them alive, they could really be bad for you. It’d be pretty good for you to throw away a chance like this!”  
  
Louise stared at her, and then blinked as she processed the Evil phrasing. “You think it would be… helpful for me to leave them alive?” she checked.  
  
“Yep!”  
  
“… why?”  
  
Jessica stretched, leaning against the wall with her hands in her pockets. “Well, just think about it,” she said cheerfully. “You tell them to either work for you or die, and they’ll probs work for you. Best to give the offer to their leader, because he’ll have experience sailing and… uh, you don’t. And that means you can be a totally kick-ass pirate queen. Well, maybe a pirate princess because you don’t have much of a fleet,” she admittedly, “but you could totally grow it! And have your own fleet who can pillage and strike fear into the hearts of men, which is totally sweet – and you’d get a cut of all the money!”  
  
“But…”  
  
“Money,” Jessica said firmly, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together in the cross-plane-of-existence gesture for ‘filthy lucre’.  
  
“I’ll take it into consideration,” Louise said firmly. “Now, if you will excuse me, I am busy here so if you don’t _awfully_ mind…”  
  
“Kay ‘kay,” Jessica said, her magical image vanishing.  
  
Louise gripped onto the wooden ship’s rail. She did have to admit that ‘pirate queen’ was not an entirely unattractive title. But it would also be an act of clear and present wickedness. Respectable young ladies did not command pirate fleets. Well, good respectable young ladies did not. She was fairly certain she’d had some ancestors who had probably… slain entire fleets with evil magic and then resurrected the corpses to man them as zombie pirates or something. That sounded like something her ancestors would have done. And she didn’t want to be like them.  
  
Although if she could get Henrietta to give her a warrant, _technically_ they’d be a privateer fleet…  
  
“We is taking the air-boatie down!” the minion captain shouted. “Overlady, it are a wicked deed to be flying you and…”  
  
“Yes, yes,” Louise said dismissively, checking the set of her armour and gripping tight onto her staff. Her stomach was churning, and she felt sick. She practiced her breathing, and tried to calm down. She hated the moments when she knew violence was coming but she couldn’t escape it. Yes, her minions had rampaged across the island, but a stray musketball fired by a pirate – the survivors had barricaded themselves in the relay tower structure – could still hit her in the face or in a joint where the demonic steel couldn’t save her.  
  
And even when her armour took the blow, it still hurt like flip.  
  
Maggat saluted her smartly-by-minion-standards when she stepped off the ship. “Overlady! I bet that good-for-something captain of the sky boatie gave you trouble,” he said. “But I are here now, to be your much better minion boss no matter what he say.” He gestured over at the sealed iron gates of the relay tower. The entire structure was lit up in red by the fire from the burning ships and villages. The screams of the remaining pirates trapped outside as minions went looting for gold teeth echoed through the night. “Pie-rats are in there. They are barry-cading the door so it are very hard for us to get in.”  
  
“We no have enough blackpowder to blasty through,” Igni said sadly. “It are a cat-ass trophy.”  
  
“ _Interesting, interesting,_ ” Gnarl’s voice came echoing out. “ _Sadly you could not get through before they sealed the gates. Alas! Well, that is merely a minor obstacle in the despicable path of Evil! I would recommend that you select one of your most skilled greens – perhaps Fettid – and then direct them up through that small overflow vent which can just about be reached if the other minions make a pyramid. By doing that, they can work their way down to the-_ ”  
  
Louise cracked her knuckles. “Oh, I think I have an easier way,” she said smugly. She’d been practicing. The Gauntlet had started whispering to her when she studied magic, and by making some modifications to her lightning and fireball spells to better channel the raw Evil she might have technically been using, she had a raw explosive blast.  
  
She’d tried it out when some winged horses had started hassling her when she was perfectly innocently minding her own business and trying to shape the evil magic properly, but now would be the first time against something as armoured and well-defended as this.  
  
The doors exploded, taking out a good chunk of the wall and the pirates standing behind it along the way.  
  
“ _Your wickedness!_ ” Gnarl said, sounding appalled. “ _Please! While unrestrained destruction is of course very, very Evil, it is often ill-advised! When taking over a location you intend to fortify, it helps if there are small things like ‘doors’ and ‘walls’. This will be expensive to repair!_ ”  
  
Louise suppressed her surge of annoyance at Gnarl’s borderline insubordinate behaviour. Who was the evil overlady around here? Not him!  
  
She looked around the dust-choked interior. Louise could see the shared architecture with the main tower, but like the other one she had claimed it was built to a smaller scale and was much more cramped. In fact, this one was even more compact than the last one. It was a squat fortress which more resembled a tree trunk than any kind of soaring tower. She wasn’t even sure how it was tall enough to work as a relay – except, hah! Of course. This was an island, so it was effectively taller because it was raised up above the seabed.  
  
The dark evil overlady of profound wickedness felt very smug with herself for realising that. A protective screen of minions in front of her, Louise marched forwards through the tower, following Gnarl’s instructions.  
  
“Oh, ze wicked leader of zese minions? Would you be az kind as to come in, pleaze?” a man called out. “I wish to talk about… surrender, non?”  
  
Louise, naturally, sent the minions in first. One of the useful traits of her de la Vallière heritage was a keen awareness of the many ways one could pick off the enemy leader. There were a few gunshots, and then the usual sound of minions rampaging.  
  
“Urgh! I was going to give you ze chanze to surrender before I shot you!” the man complained. “Now your feelthy goblins-”  
  
“We is minions, not goblins,” Maxy said with rusty steel in his voice. “Overlady, we has him surrounded.”  
  
“I has a cleaver at his throaty!” Fettid called out happily.  
  
Ah. Things were right with the world. Louise summoned a ball of fire to her hand, and then stepped through the door, into a room which was probably what was meant by the word ‘boudoir’. Or at least, it had been one until about twenty seconds ago, when the minions had entered. The lush red drapes had been cut down and all the mirrors were broken.  
  
The pirate king was a tall, thin man with carefully done hair which managed to look déshabillé despite the proximity of Fettid. Her minions had been busy, and a worrying number of them were now wearing pirate hats which were mostly on their heads. They were also sporting muskets, which were pointed eagerly at the king. Some of them might even be operational. Minions tended to get hold of the first blackpowder weapon they could, use it until they ran out of powder or blew it (and themselves) up, and then use it as a club.  
  
“Arrr!” declared the pirate king. “Welcome to moi domain, Mademoiselle Overlady. Ze pleazure eez…ah,’ow do you say eet? Lezz mine zan eet would ‘ave been eef you ‘ad not _murdered all of my men!_ ” He coughed. “But zat eez now water-with-lots-of-blood-in-eet under ze bridge, non?”  
  
He was not… unhandsome, Louise was forced to concede, even if he was very Gallian. In a degenerate, bare-chested, well-muscled, long flowing black locks coifed, attractively-facially-scarred, tight-trousered Gallian way. Although of course that was nowhere near as handsome as a theoretical Tristainian pirate king would be.  
  
Louise really hoped that was a bollock dagger concealed down the front of his trousers. Well, sort of hoped. Wait, no, really hoped. She had got it right the first time.  
  
“Well,” she said. “I appear to have you at my mercy.” She bounced the fireball up and down in her palm. “Now, am I a merciful woman?”  
  
From the expression on his face, Louise suspected he didn’t expect her to sound so young. Well, that wasn’t her fault! She was just naturally petite! He recovered quickly. “Eet would seem to be zat way, and may I say, your mozt grazeful evilness, you are a fine and beautiful woman.”  
  
Fettid poked Maxy in the back. “What he talky about?” she whispered. “I no know what ratty say.”  
  
“That are because he no know how to speak proper,” Maxy said soundly. “He are speaking funny. If he are a proper pie-rat he be talking ‘bout yo ho ho and bottles of rum.” This was broadly approved of by the minions, who weren’t sure what a yo ho ho was, but were great fans of bottles of rum.  
  
“What I wonder,” Scyl asked, “are where are his pie? I see his rat. It are on the floor there. But how he a pie-rat without a pie?”  
  
Maxy thought for a moment. “He the boss, so he eat all the pies,” he said, an insight which awed the rest of the minions.  
  
“And zat was my door,” the pirate king added, attempting to rise elegantly to his feet before remembering the cleaver at his throat and sinking back down. “But it appears zat you ‘ave defeated me.” He tapped his hands together. “Would you mind eef your leetle minion wizdrew ‘er weapon from my neck?” he asks. “I ‘ate to offend such a fair maiden by asking ‘er ‘erself.”  
  
Fettid turned a darker shade of green. “I are not some weak may den who you can take ad-van-tage of!” she insisted, withdrawing her weapon. “I are carrying many throwing stabbies!”  
  
“Talented as well as mozt beautiful,” he said, rising gracefully and bowing to Fettid. “‘Ow amazing you are.”  
  
Louise stared in mild confusion and less-than-mild disgust at the fact that this pirate king was not only flirting with a minion, but apparently doing so successfully. It was probably because there wasn’t much difference between a Gallian and a minion in smell, she decided. Well, apart from more eau de garlic from the Gallian.  
  
“Now, your wickedness, I am a wize man and I know when I ‘ave been beaten,” the pirate king said. “I am sorry for myself that I ‘ave been defeated and almost all my men killed by ze leetle goblin zings, but now I muzt offer you my servizes. I, the famed pirate François l'Olonnais, will fly under your flag and serve you een… other ways eef you wish, subject to later negotiation. I am sure we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement zat would ‘elp both of us, non? What do you say to… ah, a thirty per cent cut of my takings? And I am sure wiz your sponsorship, eet could grow even larger!”  
  
Frowning, the overlady considered the arrangement. This François l'Olonnais… she vaguely thought she’d heard of him. He was a notorious Gallian scourge of the north coast, famed for plundering, pillaging and… ahem, paramouring. All three were disapproved of by the Brimiric church in general, barring obvious exceptions like pillaging and plundering from evil people. Paramouring was more of a general no-go, except when certain anti-popes were in power. She had to say strong and resist such weak womanly urges!   
  
Even _if_ she was forced to admit he was quite handsome – by Gallian standards, of course – and when he flexed she could see that he was muscular in an athletic way and she was growing quite sure that it wasn’t a bollock dagger in his trousers.   
  
It might be a flintlock. With a reinforced barrel.  
  
But she didn’t want to be really evil! And living off the proceeds of piracy was wrong. It wasn’t at all like what she did when she rightfully confiscated the goods of traitors who opposed her.  
  
Maybe she could… guide him properly. Make him only attack bad people. And then one day he’d turn to her and…  
  
“My dark queen of ze night, I am waiting to pledge my allegianze to you. Your burning eyes fan my ‘eart,” he smouldered.  
  
Louise turned bright red under her helmet. That… that did it! How dare he… he try to use his Gallian allure on her! To think she’d be swayed by such a transparent attempt at… at… at that! She would never give in to such temptations!  
  
“No,” she said shortly, and gestured to the minions.

* * *

The sun rose early in summer in the north of Tristain. Louise yawned and stretched, looking down on it from the airship. The miserable wretched swamp was really at its best at this kind of year. It was not freezing, it had dried out a bit, and the vegetation was mostly a healthy green if you excluded the bits with where they’d all died or the cratered areas she used for testing magic.  
  
She’d had a nap on the flight back, but she still wanted her bed. She was going to collapse there and sleep for…oh, six hours felt good. That’d take her to midday and then she could eat. Urgh, but she wanted a bath. Okay, okay, maybe if she had a bath first…  
  
Her calculating chain of Evil logic was interrupted by the sight of Jessica and Henrietta waiting for her.  
  
Oh dear. Jessica clearly was expecting answers.  
  
“I just couldn’t trust him,” Louise said, having had time to think of her excuse and so made sure to get it in first. “He was Gallian. Everyone knows you can’t trust a Gallian. They’re as untrustworthy as Romalians, and barely more trustworthy than one of the perfidious Albionese. I couldn’t risk the chance of betrayal.”  
  
“Louise-Françoise!” Princess Henrietta protested. “Not all Albionese are perfidious.”  
  
“But most of them are,” Louise countered, climbing down the gangplank and joining the other two as they stepped into the tower. “They’re a country of despicably cruel traitors! And Albionese authors? The less said about Albionese authors, the better! We were forced to study some of their – fortunately translated – works at the Academy and that wasn’t enough! You can’t purge the loathsome taint of the Albionese language! The worst thing is when they think they’re being clever! I was marked down heavily for several essays where I explained how awful they were!”  
  
Henrietta and Jessica were looking at her dubiously.  
  
“Ah… Louise-Françoise, that may just be you,” Henrietta ventured. “Although of course, I am sure that this is a well-considered and erudite opinion, it is perhaps… not the most well-considered due to the sadly present bias which weights it with certain not-entirely-considered-”  
  
“Lou, you’re ranting and I don’t think either of us care,” Jessica clarified.  
  
Henrietta wrung her hands together. “I wouldn’t put it like that _precisely_ ,” she tried.  
  
“Yeah, you wouldn’t,” Jessica said, sulking slightly. “I really wanted you to become a pirate queen. It’d be a new income stream and did you see him?” She fanned herself. “Hotty!”  
  
Louise smiled darkly. “Yes, he was. Especially when the reds were done with him,” she said.  
  
“You’re no fun,” Jessica accused.  
  
“Ah, your wickedness,” Gnarl said effusively, sweeping up to meet her in the corridor. Louise shifted to walk alongside him. The faster she got this done, the faster she could have a bath and go to bed. “I must apologise for the time it took us to connect the relay back up to the tower, but as I mentioned already the tower can only support one outbound connection at the moment. We had to deactivate the other relay-tower before we could bring this one online. I will have to hassle the forgemistress’ father to see if he has found any further hints on the locations of the remaining bits of the Tower Heart.”  
  
“That’s fine, Gnarl,” Louise said. “Have the minions delivered the plunder to the treasury?” She wouldn’t expect them to have done it yet if they were humans, but minions were very good at moving large sums of money around rather quickly.  
  
“Indeed they have, your malevolence,” Gnarl said, his glowing lantern bobbing with glee. “By killing that pirate, we could clear the place out entirely. Although the income stream would have been nice. Oh, well. The treasury is looking rather more healthy. A few more raids like that and you’ll be in an excellent place for an assault on Amstreldamme.”  
  
Louise nodded. She licked her lips, thinking, as they made their way into the Great Hall and she collapsed gratefully into her chair. “Are… are there any magical weapons or the like?” she asked, the thought striking her. “Anything I can use against the Madam de Montespan?”  
  
“Hmm. Well, there appears to be a helmet made for a necromancer,” Gnarl said. “If the aura of deathly magic wasn’t enough, the fact that it’s skull-shaped is a clue. Of course, the full inspection is not yet complete, but magical artefacts are most often quite obvious, your wickedness.”  
  
Louise stared at him. “And why, pray, was there a necromancer’s helmet there?” she asked sarcastically. “Because pirates are such infamous necromancers, correct?”  
  
“Presumably it was plunder,” Gnarl observed.  
  
“No, all things forbid that it might actually be something useful to me,” Louise continued, raising her voice. “No, it has to be more… more _trash_. Honestly! No, I have no interest at all in becoming a necromancer, before you say anything at all _Jessica_. Necromancy is… is an unclean art!”  
  
Jessica coughed, leaning against a pillar. “Well, yeah. And smelly as well as unclean,” she agreed. “Dead bodies are pretty unhygienic. But you can’t deny it’s useful.”  
  
“I don’t care how useful it is,” Louise said, crossing her arms with a grating of demonic steel.  
  
“Your loss,” Jessica said with a shrug. “But you know, I’ll have it put in the collection next to that staff you found before. It’s looking pretty bare. Of course, if you got me more rare metals, I could make you some things would look just _fab_ in the journals.”  
  
“And cover all my organs?” Louise asked suspiciously.  
  
“Well, those things are more expensive to make,” Jessica said shamelessly. “You need a lot more dragon teeth if you want a dragon tooth enamelled suit of armour which covers your abdomen.”  
  
“That would look very good,” Henrietta said, squeezing Louise on the shoulder.  
  
“Armour covers organs,” Louise said bluntly. She shook her head, trying to clear it. “That’s what it’s there for. And I am literally falling asleep here, so I am off. We’ll talk tomorrow. Or maybe today. Whenever I wake up. And now the relay tower is there, I can reach Amstreldamme. Yes. Nearly there. She’s within reach.”   
  
She wandered off, in a clanking of metal.  
  
Jessica waited until Louise was out of sight and hearing – the latter of which took rather longer – before she let out a groan of frustration. “She is so annoying!” she moaned.  
  
“Oh, I don’t know,” Gnarl said, hobbling over to his chair beside the overlady’s throne. “I feel she did rather wickedly today. Minion losses were surprisingly light for a plan which involved throwing them out of a windship to fall to their deaths.”  
  
“Um,” said Henrietta. “You mean… uh, other overlords or overladies have tried that?”  
  
“Oh my, yes,” Gnarl said happily, putting his feet up on a stool. “Often just for their amusement. Why, back in the day even I remember my first drop! The ground comes up so quickly.”  
  
Jessica crossed her arms and glared, small horns sprouting from her head. “It’s not about that,” she insisted. “I like her, but she’s so… urgh! So repressed! She killed an infamous pirate and paramour when he was known for working for those who defeated him until he could save up to buy his freedom! Why would you waste something like that? Especially when he was gorgeous! And she keeps on refusing to get any handsome oiled-up men to pose around the place!” She pouted. “She really is no fun at all! I’m so glad you’re here, Henri! I was going crazy with just her around.”  
  
“I think she’s just under a lot of stress,” Henrietta said reassuringly. “I’ll have to organise her a nice birthday. It’s coming up soon.”   
  
“Oh?” Jessica said. “She didn’t mention it.”  
  
Henrietta sighed, looking around the Great Hall and the draperies which covered up the whitewashed stone. “Well, no. She’s been up late every night, always working. She’s in the library past midnight every night. She’s obsessed with getting revenge on the Madame de Montespan –and through her, Viscount Wardes. I want to do more to help her – because Founder knows I hate that horrid woman too, but she won’t let me. She says I need to remain pure. Because I’m her prisoner.” Henrietta ran her hands along the wall. “A party won’t help her like… like I want to help her, but it’s the most I can do. So I’ll make it the best one I can!”  
  
Jessica’s eyes lit up, the fires of hell burning within. “Oooooh,” she said. “I’m listening…”


	41. Unnatural Philosophy 8-3

_“Ah, poetic irony. Despite their avowed contempt for any form of poetry, the little dears are very fond of it as long as it’s messy. Of course, they tend to have no idea what irony means – except for ‘made of iron’. Well, Maximillian might. Hmm. I may need to watch that one. Wouldn’t want him getting ideas above his station.  
  
Oh, nothing, nothing, just musing out loud.”_  
  
–  Gnarl

* * *

The body hit the wall with a wet thud, before falling to the ground in a clatter of armour. The blood covering its neck glistened in the dim moonlight.  
  
“Catt!” Louise chided her big sister, calling quietly up to her. “You missed.” Cattleya had persuaded her that it really was necessary for her to kill the guard quietly – and that she really needed the meal – for them to be able to get into the compound, and her sister’s failure to be quiet was going against her plan.  
  
“Sorry, sorry!” Cattleya apologised from the top of the wall, wiping her mouth. She trudged over, and picked the body up before throwing it again. This time it sailed over the edge of the wall and landed with a splash in the river beyond. In the darkness, it sunk out of sight swiftly, and even the ripples were lost.  
  
“That’s better,” Louise said, hands on her hips. “Remember! We need to tidy up after ourselves. So we can’t leave any sign of our presence here.” She paused and reconsidered her statement. “At least until we’ve taken what we can and blown up the rest and set everything we can’t blow up on fire,” she added scrupulously. After all, this belonged to the Council, who were evil, and fire cleansed all sins. That was official church teachings.  
  
“Yeah!” Scyl said. “Tidy up after your selfy, Fettid! You is dropping your hat!”  
  
Fettid stabbed him in the throat, and then paused, checking her head. “Oh yes,” she said. “I are saying thankies to the kind gentleman who,” she focussed hard, “help-ing a poor young nobbly woman?”  
  
“Very well done,” Cattleya told Fettid happily, clapping her hands together. “Though it’s pronounced ‘noble’, not ‘nobbly’.”  
  
Louise did love her sister, but she wasn’t sure why she was trying to teach the minions culture. It was like trying to teach peasants culture. Only even more pointless. Cattleya flew down and lifted her up to the top of the walls, and between them they threw the ropes down for the minions to scale the wall.  
  
It was night, but the royal foundries just along the coast from Amstreldamme kept their fires burning and their tools pounding through the night. The waterwheel-driven drop hammers never stopped their ceaseless beat. And before them was their target. The brand new stone buildings of the most recent addition to the foundries loomed before them, taller than even the walls.  
  
Louise didn’t understand how the machinery within worked. She did, however, understand the reports she’d obtained on how many suits of munitions plate and how many cannon they could be used to make each year. The Council would use this to strengthen the army and crush anyone who opposed them. Like her. And if they felt strong enough to do that, they might also feel strong enough to challenge her parents.  
  
She wouldn’t let them do that. Not ever.  
  
Beside her, Cattleya sighed. “I wish we could have taken the puppies. The little dears really want to get to ride them,” she said sadly.  
  
“The puppies which are flesh-eating vampire-empowered adult wolves?” Louise checked, just in case Cattleya had been expanding her pet collection again. She still hadn’t forgotten the “sweet little birdies” that had resulted from Cattleya’s encounter with a murder of crows.  
  
“Yep! They’re so adorable!”  
  
Louise had many words for her sister’s abominations against life, but ‘adorable’ was not one of them. She checked on the progress of the minions. It was going slower than she liked, because Maggat was currently beating up three minions who’d decided that they could climb the ropes faster if they were on fire.  
  
At least now she was up here along with her sister. And on the way here, she’d been trying to pluck up the courage to ask her something. Her big sister might know this, and Louise had no one else to ask. No one else that she trusted, anyway. Jessica should never be told these kinds of things because she was afraid of what the half-demon would tell her if she asked, Henrietta was… uh, rather too closely involved with the subject at hand, and Gnarl… no. Just no. Louise took a deep shuddering breath. “Um, Catt,” she said softly. She had to ask now, or she’d lose all courage and there’d be no way that she’d manage it.  
  
“Yep?”  
  
She locked her hands behind her back. “Do…do you have a moment to talk?”  
  
Cattleya looked around, and sniffed the air. “No one is nearby,” she said confidently.  
  
“G-good.” Louise took a breath, and began to pace up and down. “Do… do you ever find that… that your heart flip-flops all over the place?” she let out in a rush.  
  
Her big sister frowned. “No, not really. It mostly doesn’t move.” She paused. “Well, I mean, it beats for a bit after I drink blood, but it stops again pretty quickly! Are you feeling ill? Are you worried your heart is playing up? Because that’s really bad news! We need to find a healer and-”  
  
Louise screwed up her face. “Not what I meant,” she managed. “Not… I didn’t mean your actual literal heart.”  
  
“I don’t think I have any other kind,” Cattleya said dubiously. She ran a hand through her loose hair. “I’m not _that_ kind of de la Vallière! I’m not like Eleanore and her collection of pickled animal parts.”  
  
Louise remembered why she’d been somewhat dubious about asking Cattleya this kind of thing. “This is the kind of heart-thing which is about love,” she said firmly. “I… do you ever find yourself having feelings for… f-for boys? Different ones, I mean.”  
  
Cattleya looked blank. “Feelings for boys?” she asked. “No. Why? Oh! Brain-freeze! You’re asking for you!” She rapped herself on the head. “Silly me!”  
  
Louise shifted awkwardly, her armour clanking. “I mean… I… I liked spending time with the C-Cathayan Emperor. He’s… he’s handsome, in a sort of… um, exotic way. And he… he d-didn’t try to really kill me much. And he said nice things about me. But… that pirate king. I… I was h-having thoughts about him, too. Before I… uh. Killed him, that is.” She decided not to mention her feelings for Henrietta – which were of course just a minor bit of confusion which would pass in time and was probably all the fault of her Evil heritage getting all confused just because she’d captured a princess and now it was assuming that she wanted to marry her which was ridiculous of course because girls can’t marry girls. Louise took a mental breath. Yes. That was it.  
  
“That’s just as well,” Cattleya said, nodding seriously. “Romancing corpses is a sin. Of course, I’m technically a living corpse, but the Church has formally declared that romance of undead corpses is – while dreadful and wrong and wicked of course – not as dreadful and wrong and wicked as romancing corpses which are… well, not living corpses. Or unliving ones. That is… um, undead ones, not… dead ones. Although they’re both dead, but one is deader and thus wrong-er.”  
  
“Um,” Louise said. She hadn’t really wanted to know that. “Thank you, Catt, and… uh, why do you know that?”  
  
“I read up on the topic because I wanted to know if I could get married to a prince,” Cattleya said brightly, red eyes gleaming in the moonlight. “I was… oh, about twelve at the time. Not that I want to marry a prince anymore.” She shuddered elegantly. “The thought repels me. Almost as much as a holy symbol! But I can’t get married to a prince, because princes have to get married in churches, and I catch fire if I step into a church or a chapel.”  
  
“Oh. Um.” Louise frowned. “But the chapel on the estate…”  
  
“Is a chapel on the de la Vallière estate,” Cattleya said firmly.  
  
Oh. Yes. Right. Louise supposed that there was probably no way that could count as holy ground considering what had probably gone on there for generations before. Unholy ground, yes. Not holy ground. Even reconsecration had its limits. “So,” she tried. “You… you don’t have the problem of being attracted to… to people you don’t want to be?”  
  
Cattleya looked thoughtful. “I don’t really think so,” she said, biting her lip as she pondered the question. “I’ve been attracted to people, but it’s never really caused me problems. Which is jolly good, really! Being a blood-sucking monster is enough of one!”  
  
“Oh,” Louise said, mostly to herself. No, apparently her sister had escaped such a… an inconstant heart. It was almost as unfair as it was that Henrietta had managed to have a True Love. Louise was almost certain she didn’t have one. And knowing her luck, he’d probably be some evil tyrant who wasn’t as enjoyable to talk with as Emperor Lee. Or someone who was stupid and boring and… and really really stupid. “Well, thank you, Catt.”  
  
Cattleya gave her a room temperature one-armed hug. “Do you want to talk about it more?” she asked gently.  
  
Louise sighed. “I’ll just muddle through,” she said, shaking her head with a clank. “I can’t say I enjoy it, but it’ll probably pass and it’s just my teenage years being all difficult. And awkward.” She peered down over the wall. “And the minions are being very slow,” she said, eyes narrowing.  
  
“Oooh!” Cattleya exclaimed. “Maybe I could try raising giant spiders for them to ride. Or flies! Or baby dragons! Or…”  
  
Louise paled. “I… I think we’ll talk about this later,” she said, trying to not think about the damage a minion riding a dragon could inflict on many things. Including itself. Especially itself.

* * *

Back in the darkly malevolent and only somewhat dilapidated tower of the overlady, conspiracies against its mistress were being hatched.  
  
“Mmm,” Jessica said through a mouthful of pins, “I think we really need to think more about presents… straighten your arms out, a bit.” Henrietta complied, and Jessica adjusted the set of the fabric on her shoulders. “Better?”  
  
Henrietta nodded, trying not to move too much. The aforementioned conspiracy was occurring while she was being fitted for a new dress, because that allowed two sinister goals to be accomplished at once. She sucked in a breath and winced as a pin stuck into her. “Ouch.”  
  
“Sorry, sorry.” Jessica adjusted the location of the offending pin. “So, it’s a shame it’s her eighteenth because we could totally have given her a Mega Malevolent Sixteenth, but, like, that’s the breaks,” Jessica observed. “Oh! I know! Maybe if we get her a big cake… but! It’s hollow on the inside and then there’s a really cute demon-guy inside and then he jumps out on her! That’d totally loosen her up.”  
  
Henrietta stared flatly at her dressmaker. “What do you think is likely to happen if a demon-”  
  
“A cute demon!”  
  
“- a cute demon, yes, but still a demon jumps out of a cake at Louise Françoise?”  
  
The two women thought about it.  
  
“I see,” Jessica said, nodding. “Yes, that is a problem. We’d need to find a demon who was both cute _and_ fireproof.”  
  
“And lightning-proof,” Henrietta added.  
  
“And lightning-proof, yes. And minion-proof. And that means they’re not that cute and have to wear more than some really tight underwear to protect themselves from all the Evil magic Lou’ll throw at them when the fire doesn’t work. And that’s just not very cute at all!”  
  
Henrietta sighed internally, glad she’d managed to win this argument at least. Birthday planning for Louise Françoise was not going well. At least some of it was because of Jessica, and the fact that she… well, just didn’t get surface-worlders at all. “I think it would be better for you to think of presents and gifts,” she tried, “and perhaps leave the organisation of the entertainment for me?”  
  
Jessica huffed ungraciously. “Yeah, well… okay. Yeah. But seriously, what do you get an overlady?”  
  
“She likes books. Perhaps something on history – or, of course, new magic. She’s very fond of magical study.”  
  
Jessica frowned. “Yeah, but I mean… what do we get her that’s not mega-lame? We’re trying to not be boring here.”  
  
“Well, it’s normal for books to not be able to walk,” Henrietta said, trying to ignore the burning sensation in her arm muscles. One advantage of putting on muscle far too easily to retain a perfectly ladylike figure was that she could hold a single position for extended periods. “But beyond that, it is rather harder to pick.”  
  
Jessica hummed to herself. “Well, what am I meant to do? It’s always such a fuss when I’m trying to get her to wear hot new things. She’s not interested in clothes, she doesn’t have hobbies like capturing heroes or watching slave-fights or… or anything!”  
  
Henrietta didn’t point out that Louise Françoise did in fact like dresses, but preferred them in conservative Tristainian styles and that while Henrietta herself was more than willing to cast off the backwards and repressive tastes that her mother would tyrannically impose on her, the overlady seemed to actually like such styles. That was a fight she had lost several times already.  
  
“Sometimes it seems like we’re from… like, two completely different worlds,” Jessica continued, almost begging. “’Cause, you know, we are. Literally. Please, Henri! You need to help me pick something out for her!”  
  
“Well.” Henrietta said, utterly giving up on keeping her arms held out and letting them sink back down. “I suppose I could. But… you’re going to need to help me with it.”  
  
“Oh? Because I can totes do that… and please, please, _please_ straighten your arms again. You’re crumpling the spidersilk!”  
  
Henrietta reluctantly obeyed. “What Louise really wants is revenge,” she says.  
  
“Well. Yeah. Duh.”  
  
Henrietta leaned inwards, a gesture which would have been much more intimidating and insister and generally conspiratorial if she could have stared over the top of her steepled fingers. “And that means what she really wants is help.”  
  
“Oh. Oh, no,” Jessica said, crossing her arms. “No. No no no. No. No no.” She paused. “No. You have to ask her yourself. I’ve told you this time and time again. She won’t listen to me if you want to help. After all,” she said coaxingly, “you’re her friend. She’ll think it’s a demonic ploy coming from me. You need to work on her without my help.”  
  
“But why not?” Henrietta said, pouting.  
  
“Because she’ll shout at me,” Jessica said reasonably. “And you do want to help her, don’t you? That’s why you need to wear her down. Talk to her in private… maybe in the bath when she gets back, right? She lets her guard down when she’s relaxing and tired after a long day.”  
  
“Well, maybe.” Henrietta said stubbornly. “I… I just don’t see why she won’t let me help! I hate the Council as much as she does! No, more!”  
  
“Uh, Henri,” Jessica said. “You are sort of our prisoner. You’re not much use as a captive if you’re obviously working with us. That totally ruins your ransom value.”  
  
“I don’t want to be a prisoner,” Henrietta complained.  
  
“… yes, that’s the sort of thing prisoners are meant to say,” Jessica observed.  
  
“No, no, not like that. I don’t want to be a prisoner! I’m already the Voice of the Overlady! I want to be a proper co-conspirator and help her crush those… contemptuous fools in the Council. Crush under a jolly big rock. Oh! Or maybe we can put them in a cauldron of mildly warm oil!”  
  
“What’s that supposed to do?” Jessica asked, intrigued despite herself.  
  
“Be heated up,” Henrietta said emphatically.  
  
Jessica sighed. “I’ll think about it,” she said, shoulders slumping despite the small smirk on her face. “Lou is really loud and… ear-hurty when she shouts at me. Just think of the sacrifices I’m making for you.”  
  
“I knew you’d come around to my point of view,” Henrietta said. “Now, could you hurry up? I wish to lower my arms before they fall off.”

* * *

A light drizzle pattered down on the roofs and the alleyways. It wasn’t heavy enough to really be called rain properly, but it got in the eyes and made the torches splutter and hiss. Two guards, wondering why the bleedin’ Abyss they got the night shifts, clattered and clunked their way around the perimeter of the largest factory.  
  
Louise let them pass, her eyes narrowed in disdain. The torches they carried left them almost blind in the dark, and their broad-brimmed hats kept the rain off them at the cost of nearly deafening them.  
  
Well, she didn’t mind that. It served her causes well. She couldn’t see too well in the night either, but that didn’t matter. She could see the guards who were handily carrying light around. And she had her sister with her.  
  
A bat fluttered behind a pile of junk in the alley, and there was the sound of Cattleya changing, followed by the sound of her getting dressed again.  
  
“Found a way in,” she said brightly, poking her head up from behind the cover. “If I just move some of those planks, the minions can get up to that overlook, and I can carry you! Oh, isn’t that wonderful?”  
  
“Wait a moment,” Louise said, narrowing her eyes. “Didn’t Jessica make you something magic which meant… uh,” she blushed faintly, and hated herself for it, “… uh, your clothes stayed with you? Some kind of magic outfit?”  
  
Cattleya muttered something as she ducked back down again, trying to do up the ties at her back.  
  
“Pardon?”  
  
“I said,” Cattleya said sheepishly, “I’ve put weight on. So… uh. Um. The enchantment isn’t working properly. So she leant me something else.”  
  
Louise pursed her lips, tapping her foot. “You said you needed the food from the guard,” she said. “Not that you were getting… getting fat.”  
  
“It’s not my fault,” Cattleya protested. “The blood of the living goes straight to my chest and hips! It’s jolly unfair! I wish I could stay as trivially slender as you. My cult says that’s the current fashion at court! The Madame de Montespan apparently is built just like you and now all the fashionable ladies are trying to look like beanpoles with two peas attached.”  
  
There was an awkward pause.  
  
“I am going to murder her in the _face_ ,” Louise hissed. “And you’re going on a diet. Uh. Whatever a diet is for you. Less blood. And less fattening blood, if that’s a thing.”  
  
“Aww,” Cattleya whined, straightening up. Her hair was sticking out from under her mask, and the black dye was coming out. “But animal blood is boring!”  
  
“Tough luck!”  
  
The break-in hit a snag at the entrance on the balcony, which surprisingly was not minion induced. The minions perfectly subtly smashed down the door and stole the hinges, which was why it came as quite a surprise when Cattleya stepped through the open door, got half-way through and then rebounded, landing heavily on her behind.  
  
“Owie,” she said, picking herself up, glowering as she rubbed her aches. “That always stings. There’s someone living in there.”  
  
Louise sighed and stepped through the door. “Come in,” she said wearily. She was tempted to make a comment about ‘padding’, but didn’t do so. That would be unkind. She did think it fairly hard, though.  
  
“Thanks!” Cattleya said brightly, stepping through without incident. “Stupid invitation rule. So mean and horrid and annoying!”  
  
“Hmm,” Louise said pointedly, looking around the interior of the room and ignoring the fact that the minions had gone in ahead of them and thus it had already been stripped bare. “Yes. Who’s living in here, I wonder?” Her left gauntlet felt… warm. Like holding a kitten in her hands, or maybe a sensation of nearby Evil. According to Gnarl, the two feelings were basically the same thing.  
  
The hallways echoed with the sound of beating metal and great clanking sounds. Despite that, they seemed abandoned. Louise didn’t see a human soul as she worked her way down to the ground floor and the great hall of the workfloor. This statement was correct even if her sister and the minions were with her. Vast items of machinery several times her height worked away, but there were no people watching them. There was also nothing to stop anyone falling into the machinery, as several minions proved entirely willing to demonstrate.  
  
“It’s very loud in here!” Cattleya shouted, wincing.  
  
“Pardon?” Louise shouted back.  
  
“I said, it’s very loud!”  
  
“Yes it is!” Louise frowned. The feeling in her hand seemed to be coming from below them. She leaned forwards. And there were pumps moving up and down through the floor, driving the machines. What hellish mechanism forced these unnatural things to move? She knelt, her armour clanking, and laid her hand against the stone floor.  
  
The feeling was stronger. “Minions!” she shouted. “Find a way to the underlayers!”  
  
“What?”  
  
“What what?”  
  
“Overlady say something but I no hear!”  
  
“What?!”  
  
“I say ‘Overlady say something’!”  
  
“What?!”  
  
This went on for long enough that Louise found the door down on her own. Raising her gauntlet, she summoned the minions back to her and waved frantically in Cattleya’s direction until she noticed her. The noise somewhat receded as she descended down the spiralling stone staircase, to be replaced by a hissing sound and a roar of flames.  
  
… Founder drat it, was it a dragon? Louise hoped it wasn’t a dragon. She really hoped it wasn't a dragon. It was totally a dragon chained up under here. Drat, drat, drat and triple drat. She paused to shake her sweat-slick hair out of her eyes. It really was getting excessively hot in here. Probably a sign of dragons. She was fairly sure her mother had mentioned it was one of the signs that they were about. That is, before they set everything on fire, they liked to nest in hot environments.  
  
Well, there was one thing she could do. One thing completely in line with her training, with her heritage, and with all proper standards of noble behaviour.  
  
She sent the minions in first.  
  
Leaning against the wall, she shushed Cattleya and waited for a little bit. She couldn’t hear a dragon eating them. But then again, she couldn’t hear very much at all.  
  
“Overlady! Overlady!” Igni came sprinting around the corner, skidding on the smooth stone and crashing face-first into the wall. He picked himself up without a care. “You no is believing what we is finding!”  
  
“It’s a dragon! I knew it! A dragon!” Louise snapped, nerves somewhat frayed.  
  
“… no, overlady,” Igni said staring at her with the blank expression which usually indicated confusion and-slash-or stupidity in a minion. “It are minions! Lots of minions!”  
  
“What?” Louise snapped.  
  
“Reds!”  
  
Louise gritted her teeth, took a deep breath, and glanced out. The room was dimly lit, but there was a fiery glow coming from somewhere in among the machinery and the pistons running up in the room. Waving her sister forwards, she ducked low and began working her way towards the glow. In among the noise she could hear the moronic gibbering of minions. She thought it probably wasn’t hers – well, most of it at least. She’d seen a pair of browns already prying repair tools off the walls.  
  
The red glow was coming from a recess in the floor, and from glowing metal up above. Louise swallowed. It reminded her of the lighting in the Abyss. Her heart was pounding in her ears, and it seemed to match the beat of the machinery above. She licked her dry lips, making sure she could cast quickly, and glanced down.  
  
Row after row after row of red minions were strapped to strange arcane-looking devices. Their limbs were chained and wickedly long needles had been jammed into their chests. That alone would have killed any human, but that was just a prelude to what was going on. The barbs in their chests were connected up to a complicated array of glass tubing and pumps which drew a crimson fluid which glowed like firelight up out of them. The red possibly-blood was being drawn into a brass vessel hanging overhead which glowed red hot on the bottom and which shrieked like a kettle. Cogs and pistons protruded from the sides, somehow powering all the machinery overhead.  
  
The air tasted like lightning and hot metal, and there was a tang to the air which told her that magic was in use. Evil magic, too.  
  
Suddenly she was blinded by bright magical lights, white and pure. Compared to the darkness and gloom of the area before, it was painful. Cattleya screamed and ran away, but Louise stood firm, raising her free hand to cover her eyes.  
  
“Stop right there, evil criminal scum!” someone shouted from up above. The light was coming from a balcony which overlooked the minion pit, at the same level as the brass vessel which was drawing out their magic – and possibly their blood. When she blinked the tears out of her eyes, she could just about make out a figure in a hulking suit of armour. She thought she recognised the design from her father’s pictures of what elite Albionese grenadiers might wear, or perhaps the magic-powered suits occasionally made by artificers in Amstreldamme.  
  
“What are you doing with these minions?” she demanded.  
  
“This is their penance in the eyes of the Founder, for the Evil of their creation! And I am their taskmaster! I am the forgemaster!” the man in the clanking suit of armour declared, the glass lenses gleaming in the light. The steam boiler on his back whistled as he raised his arms, the windstones mounted on its surface allowing him to move with unusual grace. “None shall enter my domain! I alone hold the secrets of-”  
  
Louise raised her left gauntlet, and lightning the colour of inflamed flesh lashed out. The man convulsed, fell off the balcony, and lay there squirming. Given the distance he’d fallen, he was almost certainly mortally wounded, but her minions made sure.  
  
Igni let out an impressed whistle she heard even over the noise of the machinery. “I is _liking_ this shiny armour,” he said. “It are the worst!”  
  
“ _Your wicked malevolentness, you have improved greatly with your use of the Gauntlet to cast vile sorceries with narry the chanting of those lesser casters who must channel the elements. I noticed that this time, you drew heavily upon your spite,_ ” Gnarl said cheerfully. “ _Spite is a very powerful emotion, but you must be careful to not focus on it exclusively! There are so many dreadful negative emotions to draw upon._ ”  
  
“Thank you,” Louise said darkly. “Now please, stop talking. I’m trying to concentrate.” Chanting, she conjured a fireball, and then blew the brass vessel hanging overhead wide open. It ignited and burnt like a torch, metal twisting and warping as it spit its burning contents onto the imprisoned red minions. The captive minions only seemed to be invigorated by the heat. Above her, everything went quiet as the machinery ceased to beat, the cogs and pistons deprived of their motive source. Glass rained down as the piping shattered.  
  
Down in the pit, the minions stirred. The red glow died, leaving only their eyes in the dark. First one, then many began to summon fire. They melted their chains and pulled out of the torture devices.  
  
“Free!” one slightly larger red minion declared, holding its fist in the air. “We is free! Viva la revolution! No kings! No masters! We no is never gonna be slaves again! Not to no one!”  
  
“Ha! That means you are-” Louise began, but she was ignored.  
  
“ _It’s the infernal influence,_ ” Gnarl said sadly. “ _Sometimes, if they’re exposed to demonic influences for too long, minions will decide that their place in life is not crushed under your deliciously Evil steel boot. The Reds are particularly prone to it. It’s probably because the First Overlord used a tiny bit of demon in them when making them so they could make the fireballs. It leaves them prone to rebelliousness._ ”  
  
“Is that a problem?” Louise asked, concern in her voice.  
  
“Nah,” Maggat said, tugging on her sleeve. “We is used to dealing with red rebellions. You is just needing to beat it out of them. Of course, you is needing to give the orders to some kind of trusted and loyal minion what are ready and willing on your orders to…” Maggat turned and whispered to Maxy, who whispered something back and then gave him a thumbs up, “… commit acts of violins with ex-treme pre-just-ice to maintain order in the ranks.”  
  
Louise stared at the bulky minion with his skull helmet and skull shoulder plates and belt of wired-together skeletal hands. “And if I, say, were to order you to do this?” she asked, the corners of her mouth curling up despite herself. It was almost cute. It was like a five-year old trying to be cunning. Though five-year olds were, in her admittedly limited knowledge, rather better at it.  
  
“It would be very sad. Boo hoo. But I is just so loyal to the overlady I is more than willing to beat these red gobbos in the face so hard all the rebellion come out.”  
  
“It are sort of a pale yellow colour,” Scyl said helpfully. “It are needing to be lanced.”  
  
“I is ready, with chains and clubs with nails in them and sometimes their own hands,” Maggat concluded.  
  
Louise put her hands on her hips. “The thing I don’t understand,” she observed, “is why you’re pretending you don’t want to beat them up and so you feign reluctance.”  
  
This produced a bout of intense whispering, largely on the topic of what the words ‘feign’ and ‘reluctance’ meant. Maggat turned back around, with a lopsided grin. “We is getting less-ons from oversister for how to act in front of princess even if princess are henchess,” he explained.  
  
“We is meant to pretend we is not wanting to hurt thingies even though we is,” Fettid said sadly.  
  
Maxy stepped forwards. “We is hearing your want for freedom and we is understanding it. That is why overlady has generously and…”  
  
“Ahem!” Louise said firmly. There was no way she was going to let a minion loot… um, steal her lines. “I hear your desire for freedom and I understand why you might say it. That is why you’re free to go.” Around her, her minions crept forwards, weapons at the ready.  
  
“Yes!” pronounced the ragged leader of the reds. “We is free! Finally! Freedom! They beat us, kick us, make us melt things…”  
  
“No burny at all,” said another of the freed reds, shaking its head sadly.  
  
“… but now we is no longer chained! We no be beaten or kicked or…”  
  
Louise cleared her throat. “I promise you your freedom,” she said calmly, watching Maggat circle around to a perfect pouncing position.  
  
“Really?” asked the leader of the rebels suspiciously.  
  
Louise considered the point. “No,” she said, giving the sign and then stepping back.  
  
Minion on minion violence ensued. And since one side had a bunch of burly, loot-festooned browns and greens while the other was largely composed of emaciated reds who not five minutes ago were having their blood drained by a magical machine, it was only going to end one way.  
  
By the end of this brief interlude of cathartic violence, Maggat had the leader of the rebels held by the throat up against the wall, while his underlings were in some permutation of dead, mutilated, and concussed.  
  
“Listen up you miserable gobbos!” Maggat roared. “That are insub-ord-in-eight talk! You is minions! That mean you get beaten and kicked if overlady want you beaten or kicked!”  
  
“Or if it funny,” Fettid contributed helpfully.  
  
“Yes! Hurty what are funny are part of minion life,” Maggat agreed. “So line up! You is coming with us back to the tower!”  
  
“You is taking our lives but you no is taking our freeness!” managed the red leader, before Maggat slammed his head into a wall a few times. He twitched a few times and then stopped moving.  
  
“Oi! Scyl!” Maggat barked. “I is needing him to be not dead any more. So I are able to take his freeness.”  
  
“Sure thing, boss,” said Scyl happily, hands already glowing with minionish magic.  
  
“Minions you knighted can never be defeated - _argh!_ ”  
  
“Wrong!” Fettid declared, hacking away at his ankles with butcher’s cleavers.  
  
Louise was by now rather bored of the minion-on-minion violence, and so wandered away from where the rebel leader was repeatedly being murdered and resurrected to look for her sister. She eventually found her hiding up in the rafters.  
  
“Catt?” she called up.  
  
A sob answered her.  
  
“Oh dear,” Louise said. “Are you hurt?”  
  
“M-my eyes hurt,” Cattleya said. She sounded like she’d been crying. “Has the fire gone away?”  
  
Louise paled as she remembered that she’d just melted the magical device which had been drawing power from the captive reds. Of course. It had gone up like a torch. And then the reds had been throwing fire all over the place as they tried to fight off her minions. She sighed. She hated her honest streak sometimes, but Catt would know because… well, it was sort of hard to hide a fire. “It’s… it’s still burning, but…”  
  
“I’m not c-coming down until it goes away!”  
  
“We’re nearly done, but…”  
  
“Is the fire g-gone?”  
  
Louise hated having to deal with this kind of emotional thing. For one, she had very little experience of it from this angle. It was usually her being comforted. “Do you want a hug?” she tried.  
  
A vampire dropped down from the rafters and wrapped its cold dead arms around her in an inexorable grasp with the dreadful strength of rigour mortis. “I… I really really _really_ don’t like fire, do you understand me?” Cattleya insisted. “Especially when I’m already on edge! All the light was fire light! And then there was the bright light before! It was like sunlight!”  
  
Louise sighed, or at the very least air escaped from her lungs. “I know. I know,” she said, trying to breathe.  
  
“I’m… I’m s-so sorry,” Cattleya stammered. “I know I’m not brave like you, but… the bright light and the firelight together… it made me panic! I had to get out of here! It’s like sunlight!”  
  
The noise of minion beatings increased in the background. “It’s all right,” Louise said, patting her sister with whatever arm movement was left to her. “We’re going to go home. Um. Back to the tower.”  
  
Lips wobbling, Cattleya nodded fervently and mercifully released her grasp somewhat. “Uh,” she said, looking around at the damaged machinery. Her tone was obviously one of someone trying to put their mind off things. “Little sister? How are you going to get all of this stuff back? It’s rather big and the staircase up was jolly narrow.”  
  
“Oh, it’s quite simple,” Louise said smugly.

* * *

“Wow,” Jessica said, hands on her hips as she looked up at the newly installed machinery within the bowels of the tower. The stone here was still dilapidated and ruined; they’d needed to open up a new set of chambers to fit them all. The minions were busy enthusiastically swarming over the complicated constructions of steel and brass, and periodically suffering fatal industrial accidents. The drop hammer was claiming a rather high toll. “Lou, this is fucking _sweet_. Seriously. You spoil me, you really do. This is more than I deserve!”  
  
“You’re right, I do spoil you,” Louise said. “And it is.”  
  
“How did you even manage to get this all out of the underground area?”  
  
“Very well, thank you very much.”  
  
Jessica ran her hands over the sleek metal of the something-or-other – Louise wasn’t really sure what this specific thing was for – and made a noise of delight. “You’re a terror, aren’t you?” she cooed to it. “And now you’re back in the wrong hands, you’ll do dreadful things. Just horrible!”  
  
“Please don’t elope with the machinery,” Louise said dryly.  
  
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Jessica said, grinning. “I don’t want to marry it. I just want to get it in bed.”  
  
Louise opened her mouth. Louise closed her mouth. “That… was a joke?” she asked hopefully.  
  
Jessica gave her a flat look. “Yeah,” she said, gesturing at the two-storey high roller designed to churn out sheets of pressed steel. “It was a joke.”  
  
Louise sighed in relief.  
  
“This isn’t the kind of machine you’d take to bed,” Jessica added. “It’s just a work colleague.”  
  
“You won’t get me again with your wicked infernal jokes,” Louise said archly. “I refuse to believe you have… have any sort of… of amorous desire towards inanimate objects! And that is that! Now! Let us move _entirely_ away from that topic.”  
  
“Hey, I think I have an idea for a present for your eighteenth!” Jessica said with a grin which would have been described as ‘impish’ if she had not significantly outranked imps in the demonic hierarchy.  
  
“Not another word!” Louise crossed her arms. “So. How long will it take to get it back into full operation?”  
  
Jessica reluctantly stepped away from the machinery, sticking her oil-stained hands in the pockets of her dungarees. “Eh,” she said. “This stuff looks like it’s of an infernal design – or at least influenced by bleedover from the Abyss – but it’s still a lot more crude than the normal stuff in the Abyss. I’m going to have to get a bunch of manuals out from a dark library to maintain it. It’s beautifully made, but I haven’t done stuff with this before. And we’re going to need to work on the power supply. At the moment it’s a minion-crank, but that just provides motive power. I’ll need reds to heat it, or… hmm, we could get an infernal combustion engine!”  
  
Louise shook her head, trying to clear her head. “An infernal combustion enginge?”  
  
“It burns souls!”  
  
“… we’ll use the minions for now,” Louise said firmly. She pinched her brow. “So… do you think you’ll have it ready within a month?”  
  
Jessica looked at it, and sucked air in between her teeth. “Probably in the prototyping stage,” she said. “Mass production? Probably not. And that’s only if I don’t need to do other things, like fix your armour because it got damaged.”  
  
“I would prefer that such a thing would not be required,” Louise said. “Not least because I would be wearing it at the time.” She sighed. “I’m going to have a bath, and then I’m going straight to bed. Midnight operations play havoc with my sleep, and I’m exhausted.”  
  
“I think Henrietta wanted to talk to you,” Jessica said hastily. “You should probably talk to her. No doubt it’ll make you feel better.”  
  
“Later,” Louise said, yawning. “When I’ve slept. See you in the… afternoon, probably.”

* * *

The silence of the tower was stifling. A ball of faintly glowing water held about her hand, Princess Henrietta of Tristain crept through the corridors. Louise Françoise and Jessica were almost certainly asleep, but Cattleya as a vampire could be anywhere, and she didn’t want to stumble into a minion. They might misunderstand what the captive princess was doing skulking around in the tower, outside of her room.  
  
She was only doing it to help her good friend, but they might not believe her. And then they might be rude, or possibly even violent. So it was better for her to pass unseen.  
  
Louise Françoise had been jolly rude by yawning at her in a vaguely offensive manner and then closing the door to the bathroom when she had tried to talk to her, she considered. She had just wanted to talk to her friend when she was in the bath, and it was perfectly natural for two women to bathe together. Why the devil was she being so secretive? Did she have something to hide?  
  
She did so hope that Louise Françoise wasn’t feeling ashamed from some peculiar twisting of the flesh which she had developed from the use of dark magic. That would be just dreadful.  
  
Well, since talking wasn’t working, she might as well go ahead and begin step two of her plan without necessarily quite clearing step one. She could do that later. Carefully, she eased open the door to the library. She had already oiled it with oil from Jessica’s workshop earlier in the day, and so it opened with barely a squeak. Closing it behind her, she lit the candles and then built herself a cushion-fort on the floor.  
  
Now. Where should she start with her self-study?  
  
Hours passed. The candles burned low, casting long flickering shadows against the walls. Henrietta yawned. Although it was dreadful and wrong and wicked and sinful and all that, from certain angles and certain viewpoints the explanations of the magical texts from Louise’s library…  
  
… well, they just made more _sense_. Blood _was_ basically just dirty water, after all. And – while of course she wouldn’t practice it herself – just looking at the theory, blood magic didn’t look particularly hard.  
  
But of course she wasn’t going to start using blood magic. Not one bit. At all. Really. Because that would be wrong.  
  
Entirely so. Completely.  
  
She wasn’t going to do it.  
  
At all.  
  
One bit.  
  
...  
  
… now, necromancy on the other hand was a much more promising starting point, she thought, heart fluttering in her chest at the hope she barely dared to hope.  
  
She yawned again. That would have to come tomorrow night, though.


	42. Unnatural Philosophy 8-4

_“Now, lis’en ‘ere youn’uns! You know ‘ow I was telling ye that the elves are the ones who’re collectin’ the taxes and that’s why taxes are bad? Well, ye know what else? Elves are secret-like runnin’ all the hoity-toity schools and yoo-nee-ver-cities. Iffen you let yer children go learn how to read, the elves’ll spread their lies into their minds. I seen that all these edumacated folks wear hats, and I’m thinkin’ it’s to cover up their elf-ears!”_  
  
–  Ol’ Phil, uneducated horse herder

* * *

Deep below the surface of the earth, a wicked force of darkness communed with the blasphemous demonic realms. Leaning on her staff, the overlady tore open a fire-rimmed portal which smelled of sulphur. Blasphemous muttering and cursing filled the air, and an unnatural and unholy eye manifested in the scrying window.  
  
“Is this damn thing working?”  
  
Louise repressed a sigh. “Yes, Scarron, it’s working,” she said. “You’re standing too close, though.”  
  
“Oh, that’s dreadful!” The demon lord stepped back, so she could see more than just his eye. “It is such a problem getting these magical gizmos working, oui? J’eszika is so much better with them than me! I’m just an old man who’s useless around these modern contraptions!”  
  
“I see,” Louise said, because she could see him properly now.  
  
Twirling his moustache, a hint of hellfire gleaming in his eyes, Scarron settled down. “I am so pleased that you responded so swiftly to my message, Mademoiselle Overlady! Oh, oui, oui, you are perhaps my single most favourite client at the moment.”  
  
Louise was quite aware of that. She spent enough with him that she dratted well expected him to be fond of her, or at least her money. Money might not be able to buy happiness, but it could certainly lease it for a while when enough changed hands in the right direction.  
  
“And of course,” he added, “you are taking such wonderful care of _ma petit_! She is so happy! It is malevolent to see my little girl doing,” he wiped away an unseen and possibly imaginary tear, “doing so well! And because she is doing well and is happy and is not in any way dead, oui, I will not have to torture you for ever and ever and ever and ever and then a teeny tiny bit longer!”  
  
The overlady couldn’t repress a shudder. “I try my best… uh, my worst,” she said. Scarron was on the other side of a burning portal, but when he said things like that she sort of wanted to close the portal and run screaming back up the long spiral staircase, lock herself in her room and not come out for several days.  
  
Well, if she had to admit the truth she _really_ wanted to do that.  
  
“Marvellous!” Scarron exclaimed, spreading his arms wide in a florid gesture – although the flowers involved in a demon prince’s gesture were things any wise onlooker should be wary of. “Most marvellous, oui!”  
  
Scarron’s habit of randomly scattering Gallian words into his dialogue confused Louise no end. He certainly didn’t have a Gallian accent. She’d have been able to tell if he did. She was half-certain he just did it to annoy her.  
  
He clapped his hands together, leaning forwards in his high-backed chair. “But alas, non! This is not why I am speaking to you, even though this is just a dreadful little talk.” He dropped his voice to a melodramatic tone. “I have found the location of another fragment of the Tower Heart, wink wink nudge nudge,” he said, tapping his nose with one rather taloned finger.  
  
Louise’s eyes widened. That was good news. Or possibly bad news, depending on where he’d found it. “Oh?” she said, for lack of any better response.  
  
“Oui. It is, as I had suspected but only just received proof of, hidden somewhere in the archives of the University of Amstreldamme.” Scarron reached somewhere beyond the portal, and pulled out a map, passing it through to Louise. She took it in one gauntleted hand. “I have marked on the places it may be, but, alas! There is a long history of Evil magic within the university. That makes it damnably hard to tell one strong source of Evil from another.” He blew a kiss at her. “I am sure you can do it, though, my dear,” he said.  
  
Louise nodded, her helmet clanking. “Very well. I will try to recover it soon.”  
  
“That is all I can ask for,” Scarron said, twirling his moustache. “Ah, Mademoiselle Overlady, what a pleasure it is doing business with you! Au revouir!”  
  
The portal faded away, leaving Louise in the natural stone chamber hidden under her dungeon. The gloom seemed to weigh on her like a lead sheet. It’d be nice to get outside. To get into a disguise and poke around Amstreldamme a bit, trying to see if her gauntlet could feel the fragment.  
  
Yes. Some time outside would do her good. It wasn’t because she was feeling rotten because it was nearly her eighteenth birthday – the second birthday away from home that she’d missed – and… and she just wanted to be home and not having to deal with being an evil overlady. Not at all.  
  
Not at all.

* * *

Minionkind liked looting, pillaging, plundering and murder. Unfortunately often they found themselves with a paucity of opportunities to carry out such deeds. Overlords could not run around the countryside stomping on sheep and kicking puppies all the time, much as some might like to. Therefore, between violence-filled excursions minions had to find ways to entertain themselves.  
  
Often this entailed minion-on-minion violence, but in the case of the senior and – insofar as such a term applied to such beasts – elite minions of Louise de la Vallière, they were not feeling the urge to inflict brutal injury on their fellows. Not since at least five minutes ago, when Maggat had beaten Maxy over the head repeatedly for looking like he was about to start reciting poetry without prior permission. So instead the minutes ticked by in quiet domesticity in the minion pits, and Maggat started beating up the insubordinate leader of the new Red ‘recruits’.  
  
It wasn’t a domesticity many humans would recognise, given that the pits were filthy to an almost transcendental level and there was the sound of constant brawling, but it was home to them.  
  
“Oi, Maggat?” Scyl asked, scuffing his blue webbed feet in the dirt. He adjusted his black cloak in front of a scrap of mirror tied to the chest of a younger and poorer minion who was getting a very good deal out of its role.  
  
“I is being oppressed!”  
  
“Yeah, you is.” Maggat turned, but didn’t stop smashing a club into the head of the unfortunate red. “What are the matter, Scyl?”  
  
“Is… is we getting smarter-er?”  
  
Maggat gave the matter some thought. “Nah,” he decided after getting bored with thinking. He kicked the prone figure of the twitching red in the gut, and watched as it messily expired. “We is getting cunninger. Not smarter.”  
  
“Ah. Okay.” Scyl brought the minion Maggat had just killed back to life. “But what are the difference between cunning and smartyness?”  
  
“That are Maxy’s sort of question,” Maggat said firmly, hitting the newly revived red again. “I is cunning and deadly and I is the overlady’s trusted minion – who are of course much much less trusted or cunning than Gnarl,” he added hastily, quite aware of the senior minion’s opinions on those who had thoughts above their station. “But wordies is a thing of smartness, not cunningness, and since I is cunning, not smart, I no is knowing the differ-ness between cunningness and smartyness.”  
  
That did make perfect sense, Scyl had to agree.  
  
“Now!” Maggat crossed his arms. “Has I taken your free-ness yet? I has taken your life…” Maggat narrowed his eyes in furious cognition, “nine-ten and eight and four-er times so far.”  
  
“Never! The red-volution will try-umph!”  
  
“Try and fail,” Maggat insisted, headbutting the would-be insurgent. “Char, Char, Char,” he told the minion. “We is doing this the fun way for me, but not so fun way for you. If you is shutting up ‘bout this whole red-volution thing, I no is going to hit you no more.”  
  
“That no is true,” Scyl said, shaking his finger at Maggat.  
  
“I no is going to hit you no more _than any other minion_ ,” Maggat said, glaring at Scyl, who leaped back out of range from the cuff aimed at his head.  
  
“And that are very unfair of you,” Igni said loyally. “You is a much worse boss-minion than others. Oi, does you re-member ol’ Frottle?”  
  
There was a burst of tittering laughter from Fettid, who appeared out of nowhere to join in the conversation. “Frottle? That are a name I no is hearing in a long long time! He were the boss minion back when I was much less looty and killy!”  
  
“He not half as cunning or brutal as you, Maggat,” Igni said, shuffling up.  
  
Maggat shook his head. “You is wanting some thing,” he said suspiciously and hefting his current weapon-of-choice in case Igni tried to steal one of his skull pauldrons. Since his weapon was already hefted, he took the chance to give Char a solid thwack with it.  
  
“I is just saying we is good friends and you is hitting us much much less than you hit other minions,” Igni says, sounding hurt. “Apart from Maxy, obv’usly.”  
  
There was a general nodding. Of course Maxy needed hitting. He committed acts of wanton poetry without provocation. That was going beyond the pale in the usual level of scraps common to minions.  
  
Things which had probably maybe possibly originally been trumpets sounded, and to the sound of dying tooting the Overlady descended to the minion level, holding her nose. The burning torch she was carrying had a blue corona around the edge of the flame.  
  
“Overlady!” Maggat said, hitting Char again and then rushing forwards. “What is you doing here? This no are a place for a so-fis-ti-cat-ed overlady like you.”  
  
“I is… I _am_ looking for a minion for a special exploratory venture for the purposes of espionage,” Louise said, nearly kicking herself for the slip up in her grammar and thus somewhat over-compensating. It was the dratted smell. She was holding her nose, but it was somehow managing to creep through. Perhaps it was causing brain damage.  
  
After that announcement, she was faced by the blank faces of the minion horde. Apparently Maxy was absent, so they had no one who could explain what she meant. Louise tried again.  
  
“I want a minion to accompany… to come with me for the purposes of… of… a sneaky mission,” she said.  
  
“Ah,” Igni said gnomically. “Why you not say that the first time, overlady?”  
  
She chose not to dignify that with an answer. “Maggat?” she asked.  
  
The minion slumped down. “I are sort of a little bit busy, overlady,” he said, sounding heartbroken. “I are having to beat some oh beadyence into these reddies. And I are needing Maxy to use the poetry to make them suffer. And I are needing Scyl to bring them back when I kills them or when they do the suey-cide to escape the poetry. I are thinking you is wanting Fettid or Igni.”  
  
Louise considered which minion she wanted to have around her the least least. On one hand, Fettid was frightfully stupid, bad-smelling, vicious, cruel, bloody, had the attention span of a thing with no attention span at all, was still wearing one of her old dresses…  
  
“I shall take Igni,” she said, trying to sound haughty when holding her nose.  
  
“Yay!” Igni proclaimed, while Fettid slumped. “Where is we going? I are hoping there is lots of alchemy there! Alchemy explodes!”  
  
Louise swiftly reconsidered whether she really wanted him, but… no. The other choice was Fettid. “Maybe,” she said. “Now, come on. We need to leave. Quickly.”  
  
She got half way down the stairs to the tower heart when someone cleared their throat. “Ah, your wickedness,” Gnarl said from about twenty centimetres behind her. “Are you going somewhere?”  
  
Louise managed to not scream at all, and only eek slightly. “Yes, Gnarl,” she said once her heartrate was somewhat under control. “Scarron has contacted me and told me he’s found evidence that the another fragment of the tower heart is in the University of Amstreldamme. I thought I’d go there under cover with a few minions and see if I could sense where it is using the Gauntlet. Um. Before I began a major operation to capture it.” She waited for the inevitable reprimand that she had paperwork to do or-  
  
“Ah, most devilish thought, your tenebralness,” Gnarl said cheerfully. “A real go-getting attitude there. I’d feel a lot safer in the knowledge that this tower is very unlikely to explode in a giant burst of Evil and pain and death. It’s very good for my health, you know. The number of little fluffy ducklings and cute puppies it’d kill isn’t worth the blow to Evil that the loss of this tower would be.”  
  
“So… you’re fine with that?” she said.  
  
“Of course, your depravedness,” Gnarl said.  
  
Louise winced. She hadn’t needed to sneak out at all. That meant she hadn’t needed to go down to the minionish levels. She could have spared herself the entire experience! Drat, drat and double drat!  
  
“Very well, Gnarl,” she said. “I should be back soon.”

* * *

Cattleya’s eyes snapped open. There was something warm on her chest. Blinking in the gloom of her tastefully done technically-a-crypt, she stared at the slathering red-eyed wolf leaning on her.  
  
“Oh, no! Bad Pierre,” she chided the blood-drinking monster, which yelped. “No using me as a pillow. Off the bed! Down. Down! No sleeping here! This bed is for me and for maids!”  
  
The wolf whined.  
  
“No! Down, boy!” she ordered it, and it retreated down to the floor. Cattleya believed in fur without suffering, and thus the wolves which formed an impromptu carpet were mostly alive. And the ones who weren’t alive were undead and vampiric, which was the next best thing!  
  
Groaning, she twisted her head until she could see the clock by the side of her bed. From the way she felt, it was early. Maybe as early as eleven the morning.  
  
Her hypothesis was correct. Urgh. Far, far too early to be awake. But something had woken her up. Something which wasn’t just a wolf using her as a pillow. She tried to be strict with her little puppies, but she usually slept through it and she often woke up covered in wolf fur and she was just too darn soft-hearted to really punish them.  
  
Rising in one continuous movement which started with her flat on her back and which ended with her upright, Cattleya uncrossed her arms from her chest and pondered. What was this peculiar feeling? Hunger, she wondered, licking her lips and her canines? No, she was fully sated from unicorn, wolf and maid and she had drunk only a few hours ago.  
  
It could only be one thing. Something bad was happening. She was certain of this.  
  
Unfortunately, this wasn’t a very helpful feeling, because in the overlady’s tower, something bad happened on a daily – or at least weekly – basis. She often woke up in the middle of the day knowing that something bad was happening. It was jolly annoying, really, but she just grinned widely and bore it.  
  
Maybe she should say something to Louise about not having Evil plans during the middle of the day, Cattleya thought. Oh! Maybe it was because it was her sister’s birthday today! That was probably a good thing for Louise, which made it a bad thing in the language of Evil. She settled back down and tried to get back to the cold rest close to death, wherein her damnéd and anchored soul strayed close to the coldness of the grave which was her deserved resting place yet was denied to her, for she wandered the world hungry for…  
  
… hmm. She was thinking melodramatically. Maybe she was a little hungry.

* * *

“Something’s burning out there!” one of the guards up on the walls said, shielding his eyes against the bright summer sunshine.  
  
“What? Where? I don’t see any fire!”  
  
The older and more world-weary guard stared at his companion. “There’s a pillar of smoke over there,” he said, trying to sound like he didn’t think his companion was an idiot and failing. As a native of Amstreldamme from birth, he naturally considered anyone from the countryside to be a rural bumpkin barely smart enough to remember to breathe, and defined ‘countryside’ as ‘anywhere where there’s grass under your feet’. In the case of this particular co-worker, he was broadly correct.  
  
They went to raise the alarm, and the short-yet-sinister black robed figure followed by a vile smelling child walked in through the gate completely unnoticed.  
  
Louise was in a bad mood. Some might say that this was much like saying that water was wet, but it was worse than usual.  
  
“Stupid useless stupid annoying stupid brainless stupid _stupid_ ponies,” she muttered to herself.  
  
“They burn well,” Igni contributed. “Also fry well. And I likey the bit where you spray them with the pink acid. They scream a lot and then melt. Fun-fun.”  
  
That had been quite messy, Louise thought with a wince. Apparently evil-water could be either acid or blood. She hadn’t quite realised that until she tested that spell on those stupid horses.  
  
Not that she’d gone looking for them! It was all the fault of the stupid useless farmer who’d let his horses run over the blasted wicked heath where the evil portal had opened. The ponies had been waiting for her! Plotting and working together! But she had had magic and magic beat the sinister plotting of horses!  
  
Looking around, she shed those irrelevant thoughts. Louise had only been to Amstreldamme a few times before. She remembered it being strange back then. Now, looking at it with older, more experienced, and not-glowing-because-she-had-the-illusion-up eyes, she could see the similarities to the Abyss. The magelights hanging from poles above the streets which had once awed her now reminded her of the burning souls which lit hell. The haze of coal smoke and fog was like clinging sulphurous smog. The tall grey buildings leaned over narrow streets, and carriages bounced along cobbled roads.  
  
Yes, having seen the Abyss and Los Diablos, it did sort of seem like a lesser version. Smaller and less blatantly soul-crushingly Evil. Jessica had called it ‘anachronistic’ which sounded like a good word for that concept.  
  
Following the thronging streets filled with men and women dressed in sober black, Louise made her way towards the centre of the old city. The centre of Amstreldamme was dominated by the university. Indeed, according to the university the entire reason the city had been built was to support it and to give the scholars somewhere to spend their money. This was acknowledged by less hubristic academics to be technically speaking a lie, because the city predated the university considerably and was in fact built on old dragon-ruins. Nevertheless, the faculty exhibited remarkable independence and authority, holding itself not entirely subservient to secular authority.  
  
It was probably this attitude which led to the university having to periodically be purged for heresy, Louise felt.  
  
Idly giving Igni a kick because she noticed the minion was looking at… well, everything as if he was considering how flammable it was, she went looking for entertainment.  
  
She swiftly found it, in the form of a poster on an academic billboard. Louise tore down the poster, staring at it. ‘A debate on the possibility of the hereto unproven yet often speculated demonic nature of goats, viewed with most eminent reason with the arts of natural philosophy and debated in the Department of Natural Philosophy here at the University of Amstreldamme’. It was today. And the names on it were-  
  
The names on it were-  
  
Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, marquise of Montespan. And Eléonore Albertine Le Blanc De La Blois De La Vallière.  
  
The names were written really small to fit onto the poster and were hard to read. Oh, and they were also her sister and the _treacherous simpleton seductress witch ex-fiance-stealing trollop who she was going to kill dead dead dead_.  
  
Well. Change of plans. There was no way she was missing this. Not least because as a little sister, Louise had been at the sharp end of Eleonore’s diatribes _vis a vis_ paint and people’s hair on several occasions and thus it was a transcendentally glorious thing to see her unleashed on other people when she herself was not in the firing line.  
  
And if the Madame de Montespan won –well, she’d have publically humiliated her sister. Which was totally unforgiveable and would mean that in the sake of her family’s honour, why, Louise would just have to set her on fire. Such a shame. Boo hoo.  
  
Sound in her moral convictions, the sinister overlady who struck fear into the hearts of the masses went looking for a way to get in to watch the debate.

* * *

Jessica was getting angry. Very angry. This could be seen by the smoky shadowy wings sprouting from her back, the flaming horns protruding from her forehead, and the fact that her eyes literally smouldered with passion. Henrietta had broken down into tears about her lost love even before Jessica had entered the room she’d been decorating for Louise’s birthday party.  
  
“What is she playing at?” Jessica shouted, gesturing around the banner filled room with the large ornamental cake in the centre. She half-turned, and barely stopped herself before her wings knocked over the cake. “Where has she got to!?”  
  
“I don’t know!” sobbed Henrietta into her handkerchief. “I didn’t see her this morning and she… she… she…” and the rest of what she was about to say was lost in a blurble of words accompanied by a snot bubble.  
  
Hands on her hips, Jessica roared, “Catt!” in an attractive baritone which would have any woman who felt the slightest desire for men weak at the knees. “Get in here!”  
  
There was a delay, and a tousled head poked through the door. “What?” Cattleya said warily, hiding behind the doorframe. “I was _asleep_. And… um, please stop being on fire.”  
  
“Where is your sister?!”  
  
Cattelya rubbed her eyes. “I do not know,” she said, trying not to yawn. “It’s… it’s not noon yet. Can’t think. Because you’re on fire. And-”  
  
“Have you seen her? She’s vanished on me! It’s fucking pissing me off!”  
  
“Okay, I have had about enough of you shouting and being on fire!” Cattleya retorted, something breaking inside her head. “It is _not very nice_ to interrupt people! Stop it! And don’t you dare swear at me! Or be on fire! In fact, I’m going away and not coming back until… until you stop being on fire!” And with that said, she stormed out.  
  
Jessica glared back, a looming and very handsome figure of smoke and flame. Gritting her teeth, her wings folded back in so they were no longer taking up the entire room.  
  
“I’m going to find Gnarl!” Jessica roared and stomped out, her hooves echoing on the ground.  
  
Blowing her nose, Henrietta tried hard to get a hold on herself. This was not a good day. She liked Jessica most of the time, but… but… but when she got angry, all she could do was think of her poor dead love. It was almost like he was here sitting next to her, like he had in that moons-lit night under the veranda by the lake, gazing deep into her eyes and… and… she furiously blotted at her eyes.  
  
He was dead. Her heart was full of love for a dead prince. She’d never love another man again, because she… she didn’t have _room_. Jessica’s demonic power was trying to make her love her and it couldn’t. And if… if such terrifying power couldn’t get into her heart, what hope did any mortal man have?  
  
She blotted at her eyes with her thoroughly sodden handkerchief, and went rummaging through her pockets to try to find one which didn’t have to be wrung out.  
  
She found one just in time to break it in when a roar of “He did what?!” echoed through and left her in a fresh wave of tears.  
  
The door damn well nearly burst off its hinges as Jessica barged back in. Demonic magic crackled over every surface. A burning, shadow-wreathed portal ringed by screaming skulls tore into the world. The air lost all humidity, becoming as bone dry and hot as a desert. Perfumed smoke drifted through the air. “Dad!” Jessica yelled. “What did you _do_! I am trying to organise a _birthday party_ here and you have fucked _everything_ up!”  
  
From the depths of the hellish portal, Scarron’s image appeared. He seemed somewhat surprised, not least because he was sitting in a hip-deep elvish bath full of blood-red bubbles and wearing only a shower cap. A horned duck of the Abyss floated by. “ _Ma petit_ , you are looking malevolently demonic today! I’ve always wanted you to embrace your heritage, but I am in the bath right now so how about I call you back and…”  
  
“I am in no mood for your shit!”  
  
“J’eszika! Language!”  
  
“I don’t fucking care! _What_ did you do to Louise? I have a fireproof stripper in a cake just waiting for her to get back and if she isn’t here the cake will go off! And fuck you if you’re ruining this for me!”  
  
“I understand you might be angry, but…”  
  
“Where. Is. She?”  
  
Scarron blinked, and looked momentarily uncomfortable. “Wait,” he said, shifting around until he could pick up the soap he was sitting on. “She didn’t tell you, _non_?”  
  
“She didn’t! And it’s your fault!”  
  
“Oh! Is that all you’re angry about, _ma petit_? That little thing?” Scarron stretched and smiled, obviously relieved. “Jessica, dear, I am under arrangement with her and the Gnarl to tell them as soon as I find solid information as to the missing fragments of the Tower Heart. Remember, darling, what happens to a Tower Heart which is overstressed when it is damaged. I’m just sure none of us want that! Magical explosions are very bad for business – and for your health, considering how close you are to it! I wouldn’t let you be there if she hadn’t already partially stabilised it. She’s probably in Amstreldamme right now.”  
  
Jessica sullenly glowered, the wind let out of her sails. “Well, yes, but…” she said, wings collapsing down and shrinking.  
  
There was a moment of silence, tension filling the world.  
  
“… wait. Dad. _Why’d you think I’d be angry?_ ”  
  
Scarron shifted awkwardly. “Well, uh, a client may have passed that information to me and I might have thought that you might have considered it a possible problem because I didn’t mention it and…”  
  
“Which. Client.”  
  
“ _Ma petit_ , I have a confidentiality arrangement! You can’t just demand to know their name, even if it might possibly probably be a teeny weeny trap! I have professional standards!”  
  
“Did you send her into a trap?”  
  
“I don’t know. J’eszika, you cannot blame me for this.” Scarron paused. “I was paid a lot to not ask questions. And I entirely fulfilled my contractual arrangement with the little overlady, so I cannot see how I can be at fault, _non_?”  
  
“Dad!”

* * *

One of the great historic problems that scholars of natural philosophy had wrestled with since antiquity was how one could tell a denizen of the Abyss from a perfectly normal creature which just happens to have horns and hooves. It was a great and troublesome question, sparking lively and often heated debates that ranged between the fields of natural philosophy, unnatural philosophy, theology, anatomy, and the occasional odd venture into demonology to try to cast a three-fold binding upon cows and compel them to speak the truth.  
  
So far, the latter had proven that cows were either not secretly demons, or they were particularly strong-willed and powerful demons who could resist even the mightiest forms of enspellment. It was suspected that the former was the case, if only because anything intelligent and powerful enough to hide so completely from all forms of detection would probably have had enough dignity to do so as something other than a cow.  
  
But goats weren’t to be trusted. No one should trust a goat.  
  
Hood up, Louise slipped into the debating theatre, trying to make as little noise as possible. The stalls were packed with black-robed scholars – who dressed like crows to a man and woman – so she barely stood out. Carefully muttering apologies, she squeezed past the guards at the door and sat herself down in one of the free seats at the back. And then she had to go back to get Igni past the guards, making excuses for the ‘poor orphan boy’ and promising that he wouldn’t steal any of the silverware.  
  
Louise felt vaguely guilty for lying about the silverware, and also the fact that Igni had already stolen the man’s purse.  
  
“If you say a single thing,” she hissed to the minion, “your fate will be worse than I can possibly imagine.” She paused. “I will give you to Gnarl,” she said.  
  
An elderly academic nodded approvingly. “Ver’ah good child raising there,” he said in an Albionese accent. “Threatening a child with the Gnarl. Gotta’h scare the little blighters.” He was then shushed by the people around him as Louise took her seat.  
  
By the looks of things, she was late and had missed most of the debate. A partially dissected goat lay on the marble slab down at the centre of the auditorium, while other preserved parts floated in various tanks in green fluid. The blackboards behind the two podiums were covered in diagrams, occult markings and postulates. Louise could see the characteristic caricatures of her sister, who combined a fast and precise drawing hand with an eye for mocking satire.  
  
And speaking of her sister, Eleanore was on the podium to the right of the stage. Louise’s heart leapt in quiet joy to see a member of her family that wasn’t Cattleya. Her eldest sister was blonde, but otherwise they were quite alike. They had similar faces and the same slim build – although Eleanore was aggravatingly taller and somewhat more busty. Though the latter point was probably because she was ten years older. No other reason.  
  
At least she looked well. In fact, she looked like she was positively enjoying herself.  
  
Her gaze then drifted to _her_. The enemy. Wardes’ trollop. Louise gripped the back of the chair in front of her tightly. This was the first time she had ever really seen her second-greatest enemy in the flesh.  
  
They looked nothing alike. She had no idea why some people had suggested that. Yes, they were both pale, but that was just because they were members of the nobility. Only commoners or Germanians – but she repeated herself – got tanned. And yes, the Madame de Montespan might actually have been slightly shorter than her, after her recent growth spurt. And yes, she might have had a similar build. And maybe, yes, their faces were not entirely unalike. But they were completely one hundred percent different! Françoise Athénaïs wore white! And her hair and eyes were pale green, not pink! How anyone could confuse them was totally beyond her!  
  
Louise glared down at the short woman who was carefully expounding on some principle of anatomy that she couldn’t understand because she’d missed the first half of the debate. Françoise Athénaïs was going to suffer. No two ways about it. Yes. She was going to suffer and then Wardes would find out and… and maybe he’d cry!  
  
… or maybe he’d just go find a new mistress. Hmm. That was a problem. He was a disloyal dog who didn’t even wait a single season from the death of his fiancée before finding a new one. What if killing her didn’t upset him?  
  
Oh, wait. She was still a traitor and a member of the Council. She needed to be crushed under Louise’s steel boot regardless.  
  
“… and so in conclusion, I believe the evidence is quiet clear on the nature of goats, and that no one in their right minds could argue with it,” the Madame de Montespan concluded, to polite applause from the audience. Louise didn’t clap. Hah! See how she liked that!  
  
Eleanore politely nodded to her opponent, and took to the stage.  
  
“Of course, there is another reason why we must – with the greatest respect – challenge the claims of my most esteemed opponent,” Eleanore said. “Namely, that while I do not cast aspersions on her talents in certain fields, this is not one of them. No, where her true talents lie is in her work with wards.”  
  
Louise frowned. No. Oh no. What was Eleanore doing? She didn’t normally compliment people, unless she was setting them up for some greater insult. Or sometimes dratting them with faint praise. Mostly the former. Eleanore didn’t really _do_ compliments, in the same way that water didn’t do ‘starting fires’.  
  
“Yes, my good friend Françoise-Athénaïs has taken in the most central element of wards and made the entirety her own. The matter in hand may have been long and hard, but she has worked late at night with wards, bent over her writing desk, and her analysis has been comprehensive – to say the very least!”  
  
Louise swallowed. Oh. Oh dear.  
  
“On her hands and knees, she has worked long into the night. And got very little rest because of the great sacrifices she has made in the name of her research. In church, she has knelt and called out the name of the Founder – praying, no doubt, for inspiration.” She folded her hands together sanctimoniously. “Oh, her fidelity is famous to those of us in the know. We have no doubt as to her virtue or her suitability for marriage. None whatsoever!”  
  
“Are you done?” the Madame de Montespan said icily.  
  
Eleanore shot a glance at the white-bearded adjucator with a hurt expression on her face. “Point of order!” she said, sounding shocked. “My opponent has had her turn to speak! If she wishes to object to factual accuracy of any of the points I make, she need only raise it in the summary speeches!”  
  
“De la Vallière is entirely correct,” the scholar said solemnly. “De Montespan, control yourself. You will have your turn later. De la Vallière, cont-”  
  
“You know she is slandering me,” de Montespan said.  
  
“Slander?” Eleanore said innocently. “How can I slander you when I praise you? Your papers on the calculus of wards were brilliant. You must have sweated and screamed as you worked on wards until the target of your attention was entirely spent. How else could you get such fine results that would lead you to your current position? Why, if you hadn’t carried out such a comprehensive study of wards, I have no doubt that you would not be on the Regency Council. Now, excuse me, I would like to raise that she so rudely interrupted you, sir, and regretfully request another strike be issued against my esteemed opponent.”  
  
“Upheld,” said the man, making a mark on a chalk board. “That’s three strikes against you, de Montespan, and a formal demerit will be issued by the university for such a shameful display. Continue, de la Vallière.”  
  
Eleanore inclined her head. “Thank you very much, sir” she said, smiling politely. Louise could hear chuckles and sniggers coming from the audience, especially from a certain kind of grey-haired senior academic. Her big sister seemed to be quite popular with the elderly men who ran this place.  
  
Probably because she was a pretty young woman with a tongue as sharp as… as… as a very sharp thing. Louise wasn’t feeling in a very metaphor-y mood.  
  
“Indeed,” Eleanore said with a perfectly straight face, “I think we must, one and all, concede that the sole reason that my esteemed rival occupies her current elevated status is because she is a mistress of wards. It is for that talent beyond all others that we must offer her public recognition, but ladies and gentlemen of the audience, please do not mistake her great skill at handling wards for any more profound talent at the study of the natural philosophies.” She inclined her head respectfully, shuffled her papers, and curtseyed to the chair of the debate.  
  
And then she let out the smirk she had been holding in. It wasn’t a large smirk, but it was carefully and elegantly tailored to demonstrate to all academic standards that she had been doing it deliberately, while also maintaining plausible deniability. It was smug. It was vicious and cruel. It was vindictive.  
  
It was a de la Vallière look.  
  
“Now, to move onto the main body of my argument – oh, do please tell me if I go too quickly, Françoise Athénaïs. Your speciality is manipulating wards, not natural philosophy. But…”  
  
The Madame de Montespan cleared her throat. “I believe this mockery has gone on long enough,” she said. Her voice was colder, more clearly enunciated.  
  
Eleanore’s smirk grew. “Oh my. I would like to raise with the chair that my respected opponent has once again-”  
  
“Shut up.” De Montespan’s words were ice cold, and an immediate uproar erupted in the auditorium. “And that goes for you too,” she added, casting a quick spell to amplify her voice. “Oh, Eleanore Albertine, you silly little girl. You don’t seem to understand what you’ve done. What wicked ways you’ve been party to. Or perhaps you do and you just have no shame.” She didn’t smirk. “You are a de la Vallière, after all.”  
  
Eleanore’s hand went to her wand. “A duel!” she announced. “If you will not respect the rules of this debate, then…”  
  
“Respect? You dare speak of respect? You, who prides yourself on staying within the letter of the university regulations while you insult anyone who fetches your fancy? And what of the insults you show to our great nation? To our queen? No, this charade has gone on quite long enough.”  
  
And half the audience rose, pointing pistols and wands at the other half. From the rafters of the auditorium, men on stage ropes dropped in, while two mages crawled out from under the dissection slab. Even the blackboards rolled up to allow more soldiers to step onto the stage.  
  
Louise yelped. No. No, no. What… this… no! What was happening? This was meant to be an academic debate, not… she wasn’t wearing her armour. And the guards at the door had stepped in and they had their weapons raised and her sister was surrounded and _she couldn’t do a thing to help_.  
  
“Checkmate, Eleanore Albertine,” Françoise Athénaïs said calmly, her wand levelled at Eleanore. “I do understand that it’s not usually allowed in chess to take all your opponent's pieces at once, but then again, chess is just a metaphor here.”  
  
“De Montespan, what have you done?” the chair of the debate snapped. It was quite a brave gesture, because the elderly gentleman had four pistols and two wands pointed at him. “It is forbidden by university regulations to arrest your opponent in a debate!”  
  
“It’s a violation of CVII 23(2),” Eleanore confirmed. “Also MIV 2(4), XXIII 43(23), and under some interpretations…”  
  
“Thank you, de la Vallière, that’s enough. You are undoubtedly correct as always, but you’re not helping.” He cleared his throat. “Yes! And you, madame, are using state resources to settle a personal grudge!”  
  
The Madame de Montespan clasped her hands together. “Settle a personal grudge?” she asked calmly. “Far from it. It’s just a question of ethics in academia.” She leaned in. “And calling my motives – as a member of the Regency Council of Tristain – into question is quite shocking.” She shook her head. “Academics such as yourself are meant to be neutral in political debates. Why, that calls your own ethics into question.”  
  
“This university has always been independent! Only the worst tyrants in the history of Tristain have dared-”  
  
“And there you go, acting so very… unethically,” the woman said, her face entirely neutral. “I think that this raises very serious doubts about bias in the organisation of the University of Amstreldamme. Far-reaching systematic bias, which provides protection to wrong-doers such as that contemptible accused criminal from a well-known Evil family.” She paused. “Tsk, tsk, tsk.”  
  
Taking to the stage, she strode up and down. “Now, ladies and gentlemen of the audience,” she said, addressing the half of the audience who had weapons pointed at them. “I would like to present a case before you. Imagine, if you would, a certain family. A family known for their wickedness. A family known for their depravity. A family whose eldest scion and heir stands before me on the stage. Imagine, if you will, that this aforementioned scion has many allies among the academics. Some of them are allies of her family – which call their judgement into question. Some of them are her allies. Disgraceful.  
  
“These academics would be a shame on their profession, for they would let bias and ill-judgement creep into their decision making. They would take the very honour of this noble institution and,” she scuffed her foot along the ground, “smear it into the dirt. Such a subversive influence couldn’t be trusted. They’d be a veritable plague on our nation, hiding behind their tenure.”  
  
Françoise Athénaïs smiled quietly, showing emotion for the first time. “Wouldn’t they all attend a debate she was in? Especially since she is known to be a silver-tongued, lying witch. Or at least something very close to a ‘witch’. Perhaps they’d all attend so they could watch a member of the Regency Council be ‘humiliated’?”  
  
She clapped her hands together.  
  
“Now, of course, we shall all act ethically and with the proper moral guidance. Not all of you are being arrested. I do sincerely apologise to those of you who are not in league with this evil viperess. But until we have winnowed through and separated the guilty from the ethical, none of you will be permitted to leave.  
  
“And as a small note, the city of Amstreldamme is now under martial law, to ensure an orderly transition of power and prevent the wicked and corrupt in the civic authorities from indulging in their wicked ways.”  
  
The look on Eleanore’s face was an expression of pure, impotent rage. She had been forced to her knees by the guards and her wand was lying beside her, but she was still struggling. “Do you have no honour? I’ll... I challenged you to a duel! If you have any conviction, you’d… you’d face me!”  
  
Françoise Athénaïs stepped up to Eleanore, the same quiet smile on her face. And then she slapped her, the sound of flesh on flesh loud in the auditorium. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that. I’ve hated you since that first day of school,” she said softly. “Take the traitor away.”


	43. A Downright Malevolent Interlude

**A Downright Malevolent Interlude**  
  
The summer sky was bright blue. The woods of Albion were green and vibrant and full of life. Happy bunnies and cheerful deer frolicked and did whatever such animals do when humans aren’t watching. Cheerful trout swam in the sparkling streams with only a small fear of a human sticking a barbed hook through their cheek and pulling them out into the air to asphyxiate. Flowers bloomed bright and beautiful in the warm, clear air, offering bribes of nectar to any insects that happened to wander past and feel like helping them reproduce.  
  
Within the town of Aebbedon, preparations were beginning for the summer faire. Things were very summery, because there was an extra –e on the end of ‘fair’. Brightly coloured tents were being set up, and the sugary scent of honey bread could already be smelt. The people of this area had always been shorter and rounder than most other men, with a tendency towards hirsute feet and while that usually just resulted in increased sales of shaving equipment, it did mean they enjoyed a good party.  
  
All in all, it was nauseatingly bucolic.  
  
Of course, everyone knew the forces of Evil were out and about, and that they were likely to try to ruin this festival. That was why Aebbedon had its strong walls to keep out any foes, and a moat filled with fast-flowing water to ward off the dead. And a strong force of well-trained guardsmen – many of whom were even barely over the retirement age from the army – to deal with more mundane trouble.  
  
Of course, the biggest threat to them at the moment was the elite and highly trained force of tiny adorable well-washed small orphans trying to cross the bridge to visit the fair. And while children were prone to doing things like kicking chickens and carrying out acts of petty theft, a beating usually saw to fix such habits.  
  
“And I want to be a herbyologitht when I grow up,” said a little boy who was carrying a basket of flowers and spices with him, demonstrating a devastatingly adorable lisp. “I want to help heal people and make them better!”  
  
The elderly guard grinned, and patted him on the head. “You don’t want to do that,” he told him jovially. “That’s woman’s work. Why don’t you want to become a guard?”  
  
“I want to become a guard!” a slightly older girl with red hair, freckles, and a crude ‘sword’ made of tied together twigs announced. She was carrying a long, thin box on her back which really looked too big for her, but she refused to let anyone else help her with it. “Well, maybe! If they’d let me! I really want to be sort of like Karin of the Heavy Wind! I like climbing and I like fighting! Hah! I bet no one ever told Karin she wasn’t allowed to use a sword! You know I heard she once went to the Blasted Wastes of Vlaar, and no one has heard from that place since!”  
  
“That’s adorable,” he told her patronisingly. “But you don’t even have a real sword with you, so how about you just let me keep you safe?”  
  
This seemed to somewhat annoy the girl, but a little girl who just radiated innocence and adorableness and sugar and spice and all things nice grabbed her hand before there was an outburst. The tiny blonde had a sling filled with woollen dolls. There were more in the bag on her back, as well as something wrapped in brown paper. “Thank you very much, Mr Guard Person,” she told him very seriously. “But we can’t wait here! Our friends can’t get here and the fun can’t start until they’re all here!”  
  
The guard smiled paternally. “You have to tell me if you’re friend or foe,” he said.  
  
“Friend,” the children chorused together.  
  
“Then you may pass,” the guard said, stepping aside.  
  
He was smiling as he watched them go. Children were so cute. He was going to be a great-grandfather soon. His daughter’s eldest was expecting. He really hoped they’d be a boy, and grow up to be big and strong. But he was blessed, really. He’d lived this long and managed to survive all kinds of wars – and the Civil War had mostly passed this town over, thanks to the wise choice of the governor-general who’d declared for Cromwell. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and it was nice and warm. What a day for his last summer faire before he retired, eh?  
  
Yes, everything was good.

* * *

Five days later, the peaceful town of Aebbedon resembled hell on earth. The merchants’ district had been systematically and thoroughly set on fire, small children had pillaged the faire bare, demons were roaming the streets preying on the righteous – and also the unrighteous, because they were fairly indiscriminate demons – and the governor-general was the focus of a show trial in the market square for crimes against the Dark Queen of the Dark Elves.  
  
The fall of the town was a mystery. No one knew how the drawbridge mechanisms had been mysteriously sabotaged, the culprits somehow sneaking through a culvert far too small for any adult to fit through. Likewise, it was a complete mystery how potent diuretic herbs had found their way into the tea of the guards, though it was truly an act of dreadful cunning to poison the one drink that any Albionese worth his salt imbibed. The fact that all the sentries had been stabbed to death by an Evil blade which hungered for human life and left them as drained corpses was pernicious in its mysteriousness. And as for the mystery of why there were demons everywhere eating people – well! It was a most mysterious mystery.  
  
But to spoil the surprise regarding the demons in particular, it was all the fault of one particular gap-toothed little blonde girl. Currently, she was on her hands and knees in what had been a rich man’s courtyard, drawing a Vaantic pentagram in red chalk. She’d already placed the dull brown Valencian candles at each of the corners, made from a mix of homemade beeswax and her own blood. The latter component had been obtained from a nosebleed, because she was prone to them in hot weather.  
  
“Hmm,” she said pursing her lips. She twisted her head to look at the rag doll which floated in the air next to her surrounded by an abyssal aura of menace, looking over the summoning pentagram with its button eyes. “What do you think, Cuddles?”  
  
The doll coughed in a lawyerly manner, and adjusted its knitted woollen cravat with mitten-like hands. “Most excellent, mistress,” he said. “I can see no flaw in your work. As usual.”  
  
Magda was the youngest currently practicing demonologist on the Halkeginian continent, following the proud traditions of her family. The dukes and duchesses of Grantebrychge had long consorted with foul and blasphemous infernal powers, helped by their bloodline tendency to be fair-skinned, blond, and innocent-looking. No one ever suspected them. And as a pretty little girl with a sunny nature, Magda was a prodigy in her family’s black arts. She had evoked her first familiar at age three, when it usually took them until the age of at least seven to master such things.  
  
Sadly the Reconquista had burned their ancestral home and slain members of the family wherever they found them. This was not as part of an entirely deserved punishment for the way they traded the souls of innocent men and women to the Abyss and engaged in cabalistic rituals, but due to their support of controversial tax legislation the King had proposed which had been the catalyst for the rebellion. Indeed, although the Reconquista had alleged they were demonologists, they had been very surprised to find the open portal to the Abyss in their basement surrounded by the mewling spirits of the damned once they’d butchered the Duke, the Duchess, and all their elder children.  
  
In the words of the commander of the republican forces, “They hadn’t seemed like the type. They were quiet, and kept to themselves. Who’d have thought?”  
  
Unfortunately, the destruction of a wicked family second only to the likes of the de la Vallières was thwarted by their second youngest who evoked the demon prince currently bound into her favourite rag doll, burned three squads of infantrymen to death, and fled off into the night on wings of creeping death carrying her little brother. Of course, the capacity to summon and bind a lord of the Abyss does not impart a then-four year old with the capacity to survive on her own, nor care for a rambunctious two year old. Despite the aid of her demonic familiars in stealing milk from cows and carrying off chickens, the two of them were gravely ill and starving by the time they stumbled by pure chance across Tiffania and her rag-tag collection of war orphans.  
  
That was why Magda was here, being _helpful_. Some of the older boys and girls had been taught dark magic by their families, but none of them were as good as her. And there was no way she was going to let anyone stop her from helping Aunty Tifa! When she helped Tifa kill the people who killed her family, Tifa was happy! And then when they got everyone on Tifa’s list, she said she’d help Magda go after the people who killed Mama and Daddy and her brothers and sisters.  
  
That’d be nice. Magda was going to feed them all to demons. Slowly. Feet first. She giggled to herself. And then she could go to the Abyss – because all her family went there when they died – and then find them and bind them back on Earth and everything would go back to how it used to be! But better! Because her mummy and daddy wouldn’t be able to make her go to bed when they said anymore, because she’d be in charge!  
  
And she was helping much more than Hannah and her stupid people-eating demon sword! So nyah!  
  
But no thinking of that now! She rose, and dusted off her grazed knees. There was no saving her dress. She always got covered in chalk when she did mass summonings like this. She snatched her demonhost doll out of the air, hugging him close to her chest. “Right! I’m doing it,” she announced, and began to chant in the Dark Tongue.  
  
A deep and sonorous bell pealed out, from nowhere at all. Darkness and fire unfolded from the earth, bound only within a thin layer of chalk. It roared and smashed into the invisible walls of the warding circle, flattening itself against the perimeter, but the circle held.  
  
Madga’s only response to the display was to hold her nose to blot out the scent of the sulphur.  
  
“Who would dare summon me?” the dark shape boomed, slowly coalescing into an ever-burning humanoid figure which may or may not have had wings. It was somewhat unclear. Regardless, it was the kind of monster that gave small children nightmares, present company excluded.  
  
“Cuddles!” the little girl ordered. “Talk to him! He’s smelly!”  
  
The figure of smoke and flame sniggered. “Cuddles? Ha. Why are you obeying this snot-nosed brat?”  
  
“Ah,” said the doll, adjusting its knitted cravat, “yes. I am currently bound to the service of this young lady – who has a clean nose at the moment – who has chosen to confine me to this doll as a host. Unfortunately certain constraints about her nature and how it interacts with mine means I cannot even try to find loopholes in her orders, but must obey the spirit of her commands.”  
  
The hulking shape of flame and shadow stared in bafflement. “Wait a moment. Wasn’t it that you had to obey the spirit of orders from…”  
  
“Pure-hearted virgins of noble blood, yes. Indeed so. A usefully niche constraint considering the pronounced tendency for Heroic types to consummate their passion with other wretched Heroes, until now.”  
  
The looming demon frowns. “I can understand the ‘noble blood’ and the ‘virgin’ bits,” he said, “but… uh, she’s summoning demons. How does she have a pure heart?”  
  
“She has a heart of pure Evil,” the doll said, sadly shaking his head. “It is rather aggravating.” He cleared his throat. “Now, do you wish to negotiate a contract of servitude, or would you rather contest this summoning?”  
  
“Fuck that!” the demon declared, to a gasp from Magda. “I’m not obeying some brat, regardless of how clean her nose is! I have my pride!”  
  
The demonhost nodded. “My mistress, he wishes to contest the binding,” he informed the little girl.  
  
Magda frowned. “You’re very bad,” she told the giant flaming demon earnestly. “I like that! But you’re also naughty and smelly, and that won’t do! And you _swore_. Fluffles!”  
  
A knitted black rag doll shaped like a five-horned kid goat, and which coincidentally was a sanctified and chained host of the endlessly-reincarnating demon god Falufarghlesh floated forwards. “Your wish, mistress,” it asked, in voice of screaming infants.  
  
The little girl broke into a gap-toothed smile. “Eat his face,” she said happily.  
  
The sound of hellish screams sounded out as a rag doll began to eat the face of a burning spirit of smoke and flame. Turning her back on the atrocity, Magda flipped open her big book of demonology. Humming happily to herself, she began to read the tome written in the Black Tongue with the aid of her index finger and the phonetic method for sounding out hard words. Fortunately the Black Tongue was much easier to read than Albionese. It didn’t have complicated, hard-to-work-out-how-to-say letter clusters like ‘-ough’.  
  
By the time she turned back, the demon was on the ground, unmoving. It was missing its face. And also most of its head.  
  
“Oh,” Magda said. “Drat.”  
  
“He was very tasty,” said the rag doll avatar binding the demon-god Falufarghlesh.  
  
“Well, that’s good! You’re my friend! But you weren’t meant to kill him dead! Only eat his face!”  
  
“It’s not my fault. I ate his face and he died.”  
  
Magda shook her head sadly as the corpse disintegrated in a cloud of bad-smelling smoke. “Then he wasn’t as powerful enough,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “That’s sad for him.” She pouted. “Well, now I need a new toy!”  
  
“Right now?” Dread Kuudeilza asked.  
  
“Now!” Magda declared. “Since that stupid demon died when Fluffles ate his face, I want a new one! This time I’m going to try to summon a sukkybus!”  
  
The demon-god Falufarghlesh and the princeling of the Abyss, Dread Kuudeilza exchanged a glance. Dread Kuudeilza adjusted his knitted cravat. “Why would you… uh, wish that, mistress?” he asked, a trifle nervously.  
  
“Surely there are better breeds for you, mighty one,” Falufarghlesh said hastily. “And it’s pronounced ‘succubus’. Why would you want one of those?”  
  
Magda threw her arms out extravagantly. “Duh! Because I want a pretty girl to be a pretty girl doll who’ll be my friend!”  
  
“Oh, no, you don’t want that,” Dread Kuudeilza said hastily. “No one wants succubae around. They’re frightfully stupid and-”  
  
“Then I’ll summon a smart one! I’m doing it and you can’t stop me!” Magda said, crossing her arms and glaring. “Anyway, you’re demons! You’re not trustworthy, so stopping me trying to summon one is clearly a scheme of yours to stop me getting any girl dolls to have tea parties with!”  
  
“It’s really not like that,” Dread Kuudeilza began.  
  
“Shut up, Cuddles! I’m doing it!”  
  
Again she began to chant, although the ritual was different in several key aspects this time. Sprinkling salt on the ground, she called out a single word in the Dark Tongue and clapped her hands together.  
  
A pillar of red flame erupted from the earth. It somehow managed to be both lavish and decadent despite those not being adjectives usually associated with incursions of demonic flame. “Who calls me to provide my… services?” a lush voice said huskily. A woman with bat wings and ram’s horns was lit by the crimson glow, dressed in a delicate negligée with the approximate consistency of mist which left precisely nothing to the imagination. Her artlessly tumbling reddish-blonde curls cascaded down her front, providing considerably more coverage than her alleged and mostly hypothetical clothing.  
  
Putting her hands on her hips, Magda squared up to the demoness. “I did!” she said, tilting her head back. “And put the fire out! If you’re cold, then you should be wearing more clothes!”  
  
Crossing her arms across her chest and letting the fire die down, Izah’belya looked down at the little girl. “Aren’t you too young to be summoning succubae?” she asked curiously, idly morphing her clothes into a considerably warmer fluffy jumper and pair of trousers. The Albionese night was cool, despite the fact it was summer – especially compared to the heat of Los Diablos at this time of year.  
  
Magda crossed her arms and pouted. “What’s that got to do with anything? Why does no one want me to summon a sukky… succubus?”  
  
Izah’belya opened her mouth. Izah’belya closed her mouth. “This is the first time I’ve ever been summoned by a five year old,” she tried. “I’m just a little surprised.”  
  
That got her a ferocious glare in return. “I’m not five! I’m six! And two months and fifteen days! Or sixteen days now, because it’s now past midnight!”  
  
The succubus sighed. “Oh, that takes me back,” she said nostalgically.  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“When you’re in your twenties, you’ll look back at such innocent days,” Izah’belya said. And then she frowned. “Though given that you’re summoning demons at the age of six years and two months and sixteen days, I’m not sure you were ever innocent. Like, wow. I mean, seriously, wow. I’m a succubus, granddaughter of the King of Hell, princess of the Abyss, and the fact you’re doing this is… like, wow. Seriously, what.”  
  
“She really wasn’t ever innocent,” Dread Kuudeilza provided. “She has a heart of purest Evil. I tried to stop her, but she didn’t listen.”  
  
“Oh!” Izah’belya’s eyes widened in recognition. “Kuudeilza! There you are! I was wondering why you weren’t answering my calls! People usually call me back after a date!”  
  
“Do you know Cuddles?” Madga asked curiously.  
  
The doll attempted to narrow its button eyes. “My name,” it said in a voice of doom, “is Dread Kuudeilza.”  
  
“His name is Cuddles,” Magda said, nodding.  
  
“Yeah, you’re right,” Izah’belya agreed, grinning widely. “His name _is_ Cuddles. Hey there, _Cuddles_.”  
  
Dread Kuudeilza harrumphed. “I hate you,” he told Izah’belya. “And I would hate you if the terms of my binding don’t preclude me from hating you,” he told Magda.  
  
Izah’belya snickered quietly and shook her head in mock sorrow. “He’s so mean,” she said in a mock whisper to Madga. “You shouldn’t trust him.”  
  
That earned her another ferocious little girl glare. “I’m not falling for that! You’re being just like Emma when she tries to make people not like other people so they’ll like her!” Madga stated.  
  
“Gosh,” Izah’belya said with a perfectly straight face. “I’m dealing with someone who’s immune to my wiles. Oh no. I am defeated and trapped in this summoning circle. Whatever shall I do? I must try to negotiate with you, for I am at your mercy.”  
  
“Can I eat her face?” the demon-god Falufarghlesh asked, trotting around the circle. “She looks like she has a tasty face.”  
  
“… okay, Falufarghlesh, chill,” Izah’belya said. “I know you get sick thrills from your faceophilia, but can you be serious for just a moment? If you try to eat my face, I _will_ wreck you. My face is insured for quite a lot of money and has a very nice assassination contract tied to it. Get your jollies some other way. Maybe find some nice girl toy goat to make the Great Beast With Two Backs with, if you know what I’m saying.”  
  
Magda didn’t know what she was saying, and began to search through her demonologist’s tome to see what the nature of this Great Beast was. “I ban you from trying to fuse with another demon!” she ordered the demon-god Falufarghlesh, after failing to find a mention of it in her dark book.  
  
Izah’belya had a mysterious coughing fit, and even when she overcame it she was still grinning widely again. “Oh my dark gods, you’re _adorable_ ,” she said happily. “You’re certainly the cutest summoner I’ve ever had! But… yeah, sorry, I’m sort of busy and I’m not prepared to be your slave. Like, at all. So maybe if you just let me free, I’ll give you… this!” Drawing her hand out from behind her back, she pulled out a strange demonic baked good, studded with brightly coloured blobs of a product of the partial hydrolysis of collagen extracted from the skin, bones, and connective tissues of murdered animals.  
  
“What is that?” Magda asked, screwing up her face.  
  
“It’s a cookie,” Izah’belya said.  
  
“No it isn’t! It’s a biscuit!”  
  
“Oh dear. It seems you’ve outsmarted me. Well,” she said, pulling out another one, “how about _two_ biscuits?”  
  
“I don’t want biscuits! I want your bound service! Stop… stop pat-ron-eyes-ing me!”  
  
Izah’belya laughed, flicking her hair. “Your loss,” she said, deliberately and decadently biting into the treat. “Oh, wickedness me! Look at the inside. It’s just filled with molten chocolate! Lovely, warm, delicious molten choc-”  
  
“I don’t know what that is, but I know you’re trying to trick me,” Magda said, once again showing the terrifying wisdom which put her ahead of most demonologists in their capacity to detect demonic deceit. “I don’t even think it’s _real_. I bet it’s just an ill lose sun.”  
  
“… it’s called an illusion, sweetheart, and yes, that’s what it is,” Izah’belya admitted, letting the fake biscuits fade away. “But you have to admit, it was a pretty good illusion. Good enough to fool even me, so I could taste it.”  
  
“Can’t I eat her face a little bit?” the demon-god Falufarghlesh whined.  
  
“Shut up, Fluffles!” Magda jabbed her finger at Izah’belya as she picked up a bell and a rag doll with straw-yellow wool hair. “You’re trying to trick me and you’re being mean and you’re using long words and being tricky! So are you going to work for me or not?”  
  
“I’d love to talk to you about contracted employment – for pay – because I have something _wonderful_ in my summer collection and I’d love to see you model it for the journals,” Izah’belya said. “Being your slave? Sorry, it really doesn’t do it for me. And asking me to spend time in such an unfashionable doll is just a no-no, you know, no?”  
  
“I’m going to bind you either way,” Magda said threateningly.  
  
“No. No, I don’t think you are, sweetheart.”  
  
“I am! Lots of demons don’t think I can bind them! Fluffles laughed at me! He’s not laughing now! He was very mean about it!”  
  
“Yes, but… what’s your name?”  
  
“I’m not telling you that!”  
  
“Well, okay, cutie, there’s one problem with you trying to bind me. One ittie bittie problem.” Izah’belya gritted her teeth, and strode towards the edge of the pentagram. Wincing in pain, she stepped over the invisible line. Her clothes smouldered and charred, and her horns flaked away, shrinking down to mere nubs on her head, hidden by her hair.  
  
“Yeouch,” she said, shaking her head. Blood trickled from one nostril and she blotted at it with her sleeve as she worked her jaw. “Ow. Ow, ow. Ow. Always stings like heaven when I do that.” She grinned, and worked out her shoulders, balling her hands into fists. “So. Your move,” she told the littlest demonologist.  
  
“You can’t do that!” Magda protested, backing away. “Demons can’t leave the circle! That’s cheating!”  
  
“Yes. Yes, it is,” Izah’belya said happily. She bent down and picked up a discarded sword, dropped by a guard who’d been eaten by Falufarghlesh.  
  
Magda looked up at the smirking succubus, her eyes wide and her lips wobbling. “Y-you wouldn’t hurt a little girl, would you?” she tried.

* * *

The town square was lit by the flames consuming the town. Demons gibbered in the corners and flapped overhead. The wailing of the captured inhabitants of the town was a constant refrain in the background.  
  
Queen Tiffania the Malevolent, Dark Queen of the Dark Elves – despite their efforts to get her to change her name to something more fitting, like ‘Malevola’ – listened gravely to the offer. “I see,” she told Izah’belya, leaning back slightly awkwardly on her ornate chair set up in the plaza. Until two hours ago it had been sitting in the governor-general’s office. That state of affairs had changed when a nine year old girl hyped up on souls consumed by her sword had kicked down the door and dragged the man out from behind his desk. And then had gone back to get a nice chair for her Aunty Tifa to sit in. “So you’re offering your courtor… curto… clothes-making services?”  
  
“Tifa!” whined Magda, holding an ice pack to her black eye while she clutched two heavily tattered, scorched, and soggy rag dolls. Tifa hugged her closer, bouncing her up and down on her knee. “She hit me. Make her say sorry for hitting me! And also for stabbing my dollies! And then setting them on fire! And then stabbing them again. And then throwing them in the river.”  
  
“Hey!” Izah’belya objected, sword held by her side in case any of the demons got ideas. “I will consider an apology for the initial blow as part of our negotiations, but I’m not saying sorry for the dollies. They started it!”  
  
“Because you hit me!”  
  
“You were trying to distract me so they could get behind me and eat my face.”  
  
“That’s not fair!”  
  
“How is it not fair?”  
  
“Fluffles really likes faces! It’s mean to not let him eat them!”  
  
“Shh, Magda,” Tifa said, hugging the grumpy little girl on her lap. “She didn’t mean it.”  
  
“Actually, I did,” Izah’belya corrected her. “I hit people who try to bind me. It’s a reflex from my human blood, I think. It’s a very useful one.”  
  
“Well…” Tifa reconsidered, “I’m sure she didn’t mean it very hard.”  
  
“Let’s go with that for now, sure,” Izah’belya agreed. She reached behind her back and pulled out a brochure. “Here’s my catalogue, although this is just off-the-shelf prices. And since I’m trying to move into the aboveworld market I’m willing to negotiate a generous discount.” She snapped her fingers. “In fact, I’ll be more than generous if you’d be willing to model for me and we can get you in the journals. Think of it as win-win for both of us. It raises your profile and gets me publicity in the right sectors.” She meshed her fingers together. “Perfect brand synergy, yeah?”  
  
Tiffania stared at her blankly. “Huh?”  
  
“… okay, let’s try that again. I’ll sell you things cheaper if you let people paint portraits of you wearing it.” Izah’belya paused. “I’ll keep the IP rights to the images and all associated merchandising, while you can wear the pretty dresses and even keep some of them, which I feel is more than generous.”  
  
“Don’t… do… it,” Dread Kuudeilza wheezed up from Magda’s lap, fluff escaping from a sucking chest wound. “Mis…tress. I… can… negotiate. Something better for. You. You shouldn’t. Give away your image rights like that. Not without. More recompense.”  
  
Magda glared at Izah’belya. “Cuddles says she’s trying to cheat! Which she probably is because she’s a dirty dirty cheat who cheats like a cheater and cheatingly cheats! And he’s hurt! Tifa! Tifa! You need to fix him and sew him up so he can help us not be cheated by the cheating cheater there!”  
  
“I think that would be a very good idea,” Tifa said after some consideration.  
  
“Darn,” said Izah’belya, though without much heat. “Well, malignant anyway. I’ll call my lawyers, and they can discuss it with Cuddles,” she smirked as she said that, “over there. Let’s do lunch some time.”  
  
“Do you mean ‘have lunch’ when you say ‘do lunch’?” Tifa checked, frowning. “And when we ‘do lunch’ does that mean we’re eating it together?”  
  
“Yeah. I know some great restaurants we can go to while my demon-lawyers talk to your demon-lawyer.”  
  
“Then, thank you very much, I believe that would be for the best,” Tifa said gravely, leaning forwards in her chair. “I am just in the middle of overseeing the execution of one of the forty-six men involved in the murder of my parents.”  
  
“Neat. I’m sure you’re very busy. In fact, I can see you are,” Izah’belya said, looking over at the bloodstained headman’s block and the skinny black-clad elf standing by it carrying an axe. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t remember exactly where she knew him from. There was a line of prisoners waiting, eyes filled with fear. Several people had already undergone the attentions of the headman, as could be seen by the stacked up bodies and the heads in a basket. Tifa’s adorable little scamps had already borrowed one and were using it to play headball.  
  
The govenor-general looked at Izah’bleya, shaking like a leaf. His rich gold chains clanked and clattered as he trembled. She gave him a thumbs up. “Which one is he?” she asked casually.  
  
“He’s number seventeen.” Tifa tilted her head slightly. “At the start of today, I was only on number twelve. Today has been a good… um, sorry, I mean ‘bad’ day.” She smiled awkwardly. “I’m still working on my evil vocabulary! I haven’t been doing this very long!”  
  
“I’ll leave you to it, then! Beckon me when you want to talk. Madga knows how!”  
  
And with that said, Izah’belya strolled off, thumbs hooked into her pockets. Behind her, she heard the sound of metal hitting meat, something dropping to the ground, and the sound of prepubescent voices cheering. Followed shortly by the sound of prepubescent voices arguing over who got to keep the shiny chain.  
  
Ah, the innocence of youth. She wished her mother had taken her to more public executions, but she’d mostly been raised by governesses and tutors. Life as a succubus-princess of the Abyss wasn’t all fun and games. Wasn’t really many games at all when you were young. You only really got to relax once you’d managed to claw out a bit of status and could do things you wanted to do without Mum being passive-aggressive at how you were wasting your time. Dark gods, she was so glad she’d managed to pull herself up to a place where she could carry out the family trade for fun, not profit. Corporate mergers and acquisitions were just so much more intellectually _stimulating_ than stealing life energy through intercourse. And didn’t leave a bad taste in your mouth from some of the things you had to do.  
  
Izah’belya frowned. That was what had been ringing a bell. That looked like Apostrophe up on the platform, and where you found Apostrophe, you usually found Lillysuffering. Izah’belya was pretty surprised at that. This operation was entirely too… uh, well, competent for Lillysuffering to be involved. She hadn’t seen even one earnest poster condemning the goods of the nobility and trying to persuade people to eat less meat.  
  
Man, she hoped Lilly wasn’t ill.

* * *

She found Lillysuffering Crim’somdoomblood sitting at a table outside a pillaged and plundered tavern, a clay jug and an earthenware mug in front of her. The red firelight played over the scene. Lilly’s scanty dress was even more tattered and revealing than usual, and her pet spiders had covered her in cobwebs. Several appeared to be trying to stage an intervention by webbing over the mouth of her mug.  
  
“Oh. Oh dear,” said Izah’belya, shaking her head. She sat down opposite to the elven girl slumped down over the table, taking her hands. “Lilly? Lilly? Wake up.”  
  
“Mmm?”  
  
“Lilly?”  
  
“Mmm? Oh, hi there, Izah-‘postrophe-belya. When… when did you get here?”  
  
“Oh, Lilly,” Izah’belya said sadly. She picked up the glass and sniffed it. “Cider? Really? How many have you had?”  
  
“Uh… half?”  
  
“Half a mug?”  
  
“… mo’ like half a jug.”  
  
Izah’belya paled. “Lilly! That’s dangerous. You know you can’t handle alcohol!” Bending down, she scooped Lilly up, carrying her over one shoulder. “You should’ve stuck to slightly fermented fruit juice!”  
  
“… couldn’t. Had… had to make the… it stop.” Lilly let out a muffled sob-hiccup. “So… so many people. All dead. C-couldn’t stop them. C-c-couldn’t even heal them. They… they bled all over me and I c-c-couldn’t do a thing,” she wailed. “I… I wanted to heal them because they were hurt but… but they were Good and… and…”  
  
“There, there,” Izah’belya said, patting her on the shoulder as she heaved her along through the burning streets littered with bodies. Lilly’s spiders trailed behind the pair of women, forming an arachnid honour guard. A few demons tried to hassle them, but Izah’belya had kept the sword and it didn’t take long for most of them to get the point and leave the mortal coil. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed, eh? It’ll feel worse in the morning.”  
  
“Dun’ wan’ it to feel worse. Wan’ it to stop,” Lilly whispered.  
  
“Where do you sleep?” Izah’belya asked. “Come on, Lilly. You’ll feel better in bed. And your bed is?”  
  
“Ou’ in the woods.”  
  
Izah’belya made a disgusted noise. “I really don’t see what you see in nature. It’s so…” she pulled a disgusted expression, “… _wet_. And organic and… ew. And there aren’t any good coffee shops.”  
  
There was just a snoring from Lilly.  
  
“You know what? I’m dragging you back to the Abyss,” Izah’belya said. “I hope you’re grateful. You’re not as light as you look, you know.”  
  
There wasn’t a response. Lilly’s feet bumped along the ground as she was half-carried back towards Magda’s hellish rift.  
  
“This way, maybe you can sleep somewhere dry for once and… like, I don’t know, not have to use hedgehogs for pillows or whatever happens out in nature. I’ve got plenty of room. And they’re taking terrible care of you if no one’s noticed that you’re drinking cider,” Izah’belya said, narrowing her eyes. “I guess I should probably leave them a note. If they even care. I’ll leave it by the summoning circle. You can come back if you want, but… I hope you won’t. You’re not cut out for this kind of life, Lilly.”  
  
She paused, and let the dark elf be noisily sick by the edge of the portal.  
  
“That’s bad, come on. Get it all out and-”  
  
With a flash of black lighting, the circle opened again. Wreathed in toxic vapours, a tarnished beauty rose from the depths. Face hidden behind a blank mask, a dark angel fallen from grace unfurled her black-feathered wings and drew her sword of hissing fire. “I have come,” she whispered in a terrible voice.  
  
“Not now!” Izah’belya snapped, and then her eyes widened in recognition. “Oh, Garzeniel! Sorry! Caught me at a bad time! Man, what are you doing here?”  
  
“Izzy!” the dark angel said happily, but also terribly, pushing back her mask to reveal an attractive black-skinned girl with glowing red eyes and dyed neon-blue hair. “Dire to see you! I could say the same! Whatchu doing up here?”  
  
“Summoner,” Izah’belya said, shrugging. “She’s adorable. Could go far if she has a wicked teacher. Also, she's six.”  
  
“Six and already summoning a succubus?”  
  
“I know, wrong? You?”  
  
“Prayer from a cultist,” Garzeniel said casually. She frowned. “That one, actually. And…” her face fell. “The prayer was ‘God, I feel sick’.” She facepalmed. “Man, slow evening or what? Didn’t even read it.” She shook her head. “Oh, Lilly,” she said, sounding disappointed. “What’s down with her?”  
  
“Drunk. Half a jug of cider.”  
  
The dark angel’s eyes widened. “What? Is she crazy? Oh, I am going to give her such a talking to! There’s no way she can forward the goal of all evil if she’s dead! Elves can’t handle their drink at all, and she’s a lightweight even by their standards!”  
  
“I know!” Izah’belya shook her head. “She’s not coping with actual, like, field work. This new overlady is pretty extreme, if you know what I mean. Lot of raw talent.”  
  
“Really?” Garzeniel said, sounding interested. “I mean, I’ve heard some bad stuff, but…”  
  
“Oh, yeah. Her chief summoner has… oh man, you’ll love it when I tell you the whole story, but she’s got both Dread Kuudeilza and the demon-god Falufarghlesh bound. But Lilly is… yeah.”  
  
“Yeah.” That was all that needed to be said. “So what now?”  
  
“I’m taking her back to my place. Let her sleep it off, and… fuck, I don’t know. This isn’t the wrong place for her. Maybe I’ll see if she’s interested in doing some PR for me.”  
  
The dark angel nodded. “Makes a lot of sense. She does do pretty bad posters. I mean, fuckin’ heaven, she makes me feel vaguely guilty about eating raw steak. For, like, half an hour, which is half an hour more than anyone else has managed.”  
  
“Wanna come back with me? We can go watch shitty plays on the mirror after I put her to bed. And get pizza.”  
  
Garzeniel grinned. “I thought you’d never ask. Just like school, eh?”  
  
Izah’belya grinned as they stepped through the portal. “You got it.”


	44. Most Ethical Academic 9-1

_“At the heart of it, Eleanore, there is Good and there is Evil. There is right and there is wrong. And though Evil will try to tempt you, you must stay strong and resist its blandishments. Your father’s heritage is as wicked as it comes, but he stands strong against it – and so can you. I believe you will be able to do great and Good things, my dear, if you can resist the easy compromises of sin. I expect nothing less of you! And on that note, I also expect that you learn how to prepare your own potions to inhibit fertility and prevent infection well before you are old enough to need them, because sometimes accidents happen when adventuring far from potion suppliers alongside dashing young heroes. Not that I am calling you an accident. Even if you were one.”_  
  
–  Karina de la Vallière, speaking to her 14-year old eldest daughter

* * *

Eventually Louise remembered how to breathe.  
  
There was something else she had to remember to do, she thought, staring out at the world through a red haze. Something quite important. She was fairly sure there was something along those lines. Something which it was critical that she do. Something which got in the way of her _all-consuming desire to burn the Madame de Montespan’s face clean off her traitorous skull._.  
  
She couldn’t remember what it was precisely this moment, but it had to be very important. There had to be a very good reason that she was not burning off the face of that _lying fiancé-stealing sister-hurting witch_ , because if there wasn’t a good reason, she would have already started doing it.  
  
So. Work off the logical assumption that there was one. So what should her next action be?  
  
Use lightning to fry her? No, that probably fell under the same category as ‘burn off her face’. Likewise, using acid to melt her down into a puddle of organs and meat wasn’t a good idea for… for some reason.  
  
She should listen to her blood and consider what it wanted her to do. Ah, yes. Her long heritage of de la Vallière ancestors was pointing out that if she did something stupid and heroic by throwing herself at the Madame de Montespan right now, not only would she get herself killed – which her blood was not in favour of – but she would also get her sister killed because de Montespan would consider a rescue attempt an excuse to kill Eleanore. And then when they found out that the Overlady of the North was Louise, they’d use that as a chance to go after her parents, and probably re-kill Cattleya and Jess and lock Henrietta up again if they found the Tower. And the towering rage she found herself in was probably the result of a disgusting heroic sort like her mother ruining the breeding line.  
  
Stupid totally accurate and correct blood. Even if she didn’t appreciate the jibe about her mother.  
  
So what she should do, her blood continued, was get in a position where she could make sure Eleanore was safe, and _then_ burn off the Madame de Montespan’s face and then keep on burning and make sure that she couldn’t run away and return wearing a prosthetic face made of silver, which was the sort of thing heroes did. Because no one betrayed de la Vallières and got away with it, apart from other de la Vallières – and only then for sound strategic reasons which served the overall goal of the family. Not over anything as _petty_ as this.  
  
Ah. That was a good point. And much more palatable. Sometimes having the blood of the darkest of villains was convenient, especially when it came with useful instincts for self-preservation.  
  
The lecture theatre was half filled with soldiers. They were checking everyone, pulling off academic hoods and caps as they looked for people on lists they had. There were mages and there were unpleasant hard-faced people with swords and pistols. They certainly had the potential to do rather unkind things to her.  
  
Now, on one hand Louise was fairly sure she wasn’t going to be on a list of people to arrest. After all, she had vanished over a year ago, and even if her parents knew she was alive and ‘kidnapped by the overlady’, she suspected they weren’t going to shout it from the rooftops – not least because of the fear that Cattleya’s involvement would be discovered. On the other, much more important hand she looked incredibly like her mother, quite a lot like her big sister, and she was wearing a sinister hooded robe and wearing an ancient artefact of Evil on the aforementioned hand.  
  
So she really didn’t want to be found.  
  
Carefully, gently Louise looked around and then sunk down in her seat. The floor under her was made of wooden planks, and through the gaps she could see light. So that meant there was a room built in the space under this seating. One not very far below. Placing her gauntleted hand down on the floor, she whispered an incantation. Pink foaming acid began to bubble and steam on the wood, dissolving its way through with alarming alacrity.  
  
Now, all she had to do was wait for it to make a slightly bigger hole, delay until no guard was looking in her direction and then with utmost subtlety and grace she could slip out without-  
  
“Hey, what’s that smell?”  
  
“Like acid, I think!”  
  
“Someone find it!”  
  
Oh sugar.  
  
She quickly added more acid, grabbed Igni around the ankles with her free hand and dropped down the hole. She made sure that he was between her and the ground. Better a soft and stupid landing than something hard.  
  
Louise landed with a pronounced ‘oof’ and the scent of onions. That was unexpected, because minions as a species would generally be significantly improved if they smelt of onion rather than ‘minion’. Despite the shared final four letters, the odours were radically different.  
  
She looked around. Ah, yes. The reason that there was a smell of onions was that she had landed on a sack of them. Well, technically she had landed on Igni and Igni had landed on them, but who was counting? Certainly not Igni, as he lacked the intelligence or looted skeletal fingers to do so. The reason she had landed on a sack of onions, incidentally, was that it seemed that the university staff had taken to storing food supplies in the empty places below the lecture theatre. She looked around at piled crates of vegetables, bags of flour, and of course shocked looking serving staff who were somewhat surprised that magical acid had burned a hole in the ceiling. And, uh, bits of the floor too.  
  
“As you were,” Louise told them as she hastily clambered off Igni and brushed herself down. “Just a minor magical… uh, experiment. I was demonstrating something to the class. With. Um. The aid of this _poor orphaned child_ ,” she hinted strongly.  
  
This seemed to pass muster. “Urgh, again?” Louise heard a woman say. “They need to move these here stores away from the bleedin’ lecture hall. I swear, if we could just go a week without this happenin’, I’d be a happy woman.”  
  
Excellent. Time to make her escape.  
  
“Someone stop them!” a guard shouted down through the hole in the ceiling.  
  
Louise fled. And then there was much lamentation. Or at least much weeping, because Igni set fire to the onions.

* * *

A placid expression on her face, Françoise Athénaïs stared around the chaotic lecture hall. The expression was only possible because of the spell which surrounded her head in a bubble of fresh air. Otherwise she’d be choking and gasping like everyone else in here.  
  
“Everything smells of onions!” the captain of the guard wheezed, holding a handkerchief to his watering eyes. “We’re under attack! The treacherous Gallians are attacking us! King Joseph has declared war.”  
  
The Madame de Montespan gave him a look that said in no uncertain terms that she considered him to be an idiot. She seriously doubted King Joseph had declared war, not least because it was widely held that the man was so crazy that most days he wasn’t entirely sure where Tristain was and thus any attempt to attack it would probably involve him ordering his men to march into the Great North Sea and stab it to death. And it had already been proven natural-philosophically impossible to stab the ocean to death, despite the best efforts of various popes, princes and one king annoyed that the tide refused to listen to his orders. Its susceptibility to siege warfare hadn’t yet been tested, but it was probably only a matter of time.  
  
“I doubt that the Gallians have decided to attack Amstrelldame right here and now,” she said clearly. She looked down at the figure of Eleanore de la Vallière, who glared back despite her watering eyes and the bright red slap mark on her face. “Get her out of here, just in case this is an ill-planned rescue attempt.”  
  
She didn’t think it was a rescue attempt, though. It rather more resembled an undergraduate prank. The Madame de Montespan shuddered elegantly. Undergraduates. That universities had to have them around was one of their few great flaws. She’d been an undergraduate once, which was a shameful blemish on her character, but she’d had the decency and good taste to grow out of it.  
  
Eleanore de la Vallière was disgustingly popular among undergraduates. Apparently she ‘made natural philosophy fun’. Given that most undergraduates were barely human, they apparently enjoyed her tendency to produce mocking diagrams and generally act in a crude and inciteful manner. It was probably some black sorcery of the de la Vallière family which let her channel her boundless spite to capture others under her will.  
  
Yes. Françoise Athénaïs balled her hands into fists, even as her face remained calm. The de la Vallières were good at _stealing_ things. Thieves. Treacherous evil thieves. She’d show them. She’d show them all the consequences for their actions!

* * *

Louise fled through corridors which smelt strongly of onions. It was probably for the best, decided the bit of her brain which wasn’t cursing about how much her eyes hurt. It meant that no one could follow her or Igni by the odour d’minion.  
  
The de la Vallière part of her brain also contemplated whether she should load some catapults with burning sacks of onions and fire them into enemy castles to incapacitate their protectors, but then decided that it was better that she use something kinder. Like one of those alchemical compounds which drive men mad and lead them to fall upon their friends in a killing frenzy, before their hearts give out. Louise told that stupid bit of her brain to shut up if it wasn’t going to help her run because now wasn’t the time, darn it.  
  
Eventually the sound of footsteps faded away. It was just as well. She was gasping for breath and on the verge of collapsing. Why was she so out of shape? She needed to find somewhere to sit, just to get her breath back. Louise looked around. Her flight had led her into the theology department. Seeing a nearby chapel, she ducked inside. The chapel was small, but there were long red curtains hanging from the walls. They’d do.  
  
Gratefully, she let herself sag down, and then realised she’d lost Igni.  
  
Well. Uh.  
  
Gosh.  
  
A shame, but he’d probably show up at some point. Or she’d just need to follow the fire. If he’d heroically given up his life in her service, she’d… uh, do something. Maybe get some revenge? Maybe be secretly happy? She was too out of breath to really be sure at this present time, but decided she’d make up her mind later.  
  
A vague sense of religious guilt nagged at her. This was a chapel, after all. And in her current place, a prayer probably wouldn’t hurt.  
  
Kneeling behind the curtain, Louise clasped her hands together. “Uh, hello?” she whispered. “Founder? Lord? If it might please you, might I have your divine aid in my sacred quest? Uh, right now, that is? Please? I understand that I may sort of be an overlady, but that was never really something I planned. And I have always been faithful to my princess,” and have never indulged in any wicked urges directed towards her, Louise mentally added because there was no way she was admitting to that out loud, “and while I may have occasionally used dark and evil magics, I have only directed them against villains, fiends, demons, and quite a lot of vampires. And a few necromancers And traitors, obviously.”  
  
Louise waited to see if there was an answer, and really hoped it didn’t come in the form of righteous smiting. The fact that no lightning bolt had come after a few seconds was probably good news, all in all. The lack of a booming voice telling her that all her sins were forgiven and that none of them had been very bad sins in the first place so she should keep on doing what she had been doing already because it was the Lord’s will that Princess Henrietta be restored to the throne was… uh, less comforting, but the fact that she had wanted that was probably hubris anyway.  
  
“Amen?” she added hopefully.  
  
An answer would be nice, though.  
  
A little white head poked through the curtain, and mewled. A young cat, barely more than a kitten, pushed its way into her hiding place and – after spending a few seconds batting at the tassels on the curtains – stared up at her with bright blue eyes.  
  
“Hello, kitty,” Louise breathed. “Just go away. Please.” She could hear a clatter of feet outside. The guards were showing up. “No, no, no. Move on, please,” she told the guards and the cat alike.  
  
The white cat tilted its head at her words, and walked closer. Purring like a saw, it rubbed up against her legs. It obviously wanted to be stroked.  
  
“Shh!” she whispered. “Please… just go.”  
  
Sitting down, the cat stared at her. Blue eyes stared up at her. Quite deliberately, it mewed.  
  
“Oh no, no, no. Don’t start that. Don’t even think of it,” Louise hissed.  
  
It mewed, slightly louder this time.  
  
“No no no. Please.”  
  
It mewed again, raising the volume.  
  
“What was that?” called out one of the guards.  
  
“Sounded like a cat,” another one said.  
  
Louise rotated in place, trying to make as little noise as possible. Carefully, delicately, she reached out and stroked the cat. It purred happily, melting into her evil gauntleted touch like a sack of butter under a blowtorch.  
  
“Oh, you… you wicked little thing,” Louise whispered, gritting her teeth. “How dare you do that?”  
  
“Just a cat. Never mind.”  
  
The cat shot her a glance, which clearly indicated it’d yowl if she even thought of stopping the stroking.  
  
“You wicked, malevolent, evil, bad, nasty, cruel, spiteful, horrific, terrible, monstrous thing,” Louise added. “You… you Wardesian dog… uh, cat.”  
  
Twisting, the cat rolled over onto its back and batted at her gauntlet with its pawns, play-fighting with the tool of vilest Evil.  
  
Barely breathing, Louise listened while tickling the white cat on the stomach. It had a collar. Apparently its name was Pallas. The guards seemed to be going. Good. They’d go, she’d get out of here, and now that she actually had her breath back she could speak to the tower and see what the nearest escape route would be.  
  
“Goodbye, Pallas,” she said, “you evil stupid wretched thing.”  
  
The cat tilted its head. “Mrrraa?” it asked quizzically.  
  
“Yes, I’m leaving,” Louise told it cheerfully.  
  
“Mrarrraraaaaa!” it mewed threateningly, raising its voice.  
  
“Oh no. No you don’t.”  
  
“Mrraa.” Pallas rolled onto its feet, and sprung up onto her shoulder.  
  
“Of course you can’t come with me!” Louise hissed.  
  
“Mrrrrrrr,” the cat disagreed.  
  
Louise winced. Grating her teeth together, she sighed. “Fine!” she muttered. “Stupid d… cat. Can’t even tell a cat what to do.”  
  
“Mraaa!” Pallas agreed as she rose and poked her head through the curtains. No one was looking for her and the guards had moved on. Time to make her move.  
  
“I bet you were some witch’s familiar,” Louise told the cat sitting on her shoulder, grumbling as she poked her head out of the chapel entrance. It looked clear. “Some wicked horrible witch. She… she probably fed you on scraps from the table. And she cooked children, so you… you grew up feeding on human flesh. Well, there’s no way you’re getting that from me.”  
  
Louise was vaguely aware that witches were meant to… um, nurse their familiars. Which was… uh, a thing. A horrible, perverse lower class thing which clearly indicated why only peasants became witches, while proper well-bred ladies who fell to the forces of Darkness became sorceresses or dark enchantresses or… or other wicked blasphemies which did not, in any way whatsoever, involve having a cat chewing on your breasts. Apart from witch-queens, but if they didn’t want a wetnurse to feed their cats they were clearly… clearly s-s-sick in the head.  
  
“There’s no way I’m doing _that_ for you either,” she added, glaring at it. “You can just eat mice. If you can get to them before the minions.”  
  
The cat mewed and batted at the end of her hood with its paw, clearly enjoying its ride. “Mrrarrara,” it observed wisely. Perhaps it felt more comfortable because it wasn’t _too_ high off the ground.  
  
And then Louise felt it. Distant. Warm. Pulsing. And familiar.  
  
Yes. She could feel the fragment of the tower heart somewhere in this building.

* * *

Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, marquise of Montespan sat back in her office. It was a nice office. It was, in fact, possibly the second best office in the entire university. The large glass window overlooked the fens to the east of the university, and – apart from the annoyance of the cemetery – it was a wonderful view. It always made her feel so calm and relaxed and tranquil.  
  
But then again, being on the Regency Council had its advantages. And barring a small onion-based prank, today had been very, very, very, very, very, very good day. She held her hands to her flushing cheeks. Yes. The best day ever! Well, not quite! Because there’d be one day which would be better and she’d be wearing a white mantle and…  
  
Françoise Athénaïs started to laugh, high and shrill, and then clasped her hands over her mouth. She wasn’t meant to laugh like that, even in private. Someone might hear. She had to seem calm and impassive and like the earth of her magic. Proper manners, yes. Proper dignity.  
  
A deep breath. Yes. Calm like the earth. Cool as marble. Yes.  
  
There came a hesitant knock at her door.  
  
“Come on,” she said clearly.  
  
Several guards shuffled in, each of them trying to hide behind at least one of the others. She had found she worried the guards. Apparently they didn’t like her habit of using excessively long words. She tried to dampen down her vocabulary for the sake of their uneducated tiny brains, but it didn’t seem to help.  
  
“Well, your ladyship,” the first of the guards said reluctantly. “We… uh, have a small tiny weeny question. About Miss de la Vallière?”  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“Well, when you said to put her in ‘the special cell’,” one of the guards began. “Uh… which one did you mean by that?”  
  
There was an awkward silence. “Did you mean the special cell with the rack and the dripping water fountain and… all them things?” another of the guards asked.  
  
The Madame de Montespan sighed. “No, the _other_ special cell,” she told him with a faint note of irritation in her voice.  
  
“Well, I’m just saying, your ladyship, it’s a bit confusing to have two cells which you call ‘the special cell’. Howsabout we try renaming one of them?”  
  
“It wouldn’t take very long,” another guard chipped in. “Just need some paint, we can repaint the sign on one of them. Simple! My next performance review wants me to suggest a process improvement and this kind of proactive thingie will look very good ‘cause my wife is wanting me to make sergeant by the time I’m thirty and-”  
  
“We will table the motion for later,” de Montespan said coldly. “For now, just take her to the special cell which is located in the east block.”  
  
“Ah, excellent show your ladyness. The East Special Cell. Gotcha. We’ll just… uh, have to move her.”

* * *

For the second time in the space of an hour or so, Eleanore de la Vallière was thrown in a prison cell.  
  
As prison cells were, this one was certainly an improvement over the last one. There were roughly zero percent of the torture devices, which also left a lot more floor space. It was probably for the best. The previous one really had been a bit cramped. Really trying too hard.  
  
The key turned in the barred door behind her. Eleanore counted to a hundred in her head, and let the men who’d dragged her here get out of hearing range. Then she let out a scream of frustration, and started beating the metaphorical crap out of her pillow. After around fifteen minutes of this she was feeling somewhat more in control of herself. Enough that she could resist the urge to punch a wall, at least. Punching walls hurt. She’d found that out a lot when she was younger, until the fact had been pounded in enough to stick.  
  
Slumping down on the floor, she sat panting and let the tears take her. It was all part of the catharsis. She had to vent the negative emotions and feelings before they could condense within her and lead her to do things she didn’t want to do. And if it looked like she’d have a breakdown, well, all the better for her.  
  
Once she was feeling calmer, she dried her eyes and took a deep and barely-shuddery-at-all breath.  
  
As the eldest daughter of two famous Heroes with more than a little experience of her own, Eleanore took in the cell with practiced eyes. A window wide enough for her to fit her shoulders through with metal bars which were barely embedded in the crumbling mortar. The wall the bed was up against had manacle bolts in which could be easily used to collapse the structure. The gate was one of the old-style hinged ones which, if she strained, she could probably lift off the frame and get through. The lock was fragile and could probably be broken with a good kick. The jailer had hung the keys on the wall opposite the door, and if she reached through, she could reach them.  
  
Oh, and to round things off, there was a wand under her pillow, with an anonymous note attached. It said “You have friends. Use this well.”  
  
Eleanore sighed. Honestly, Françoise Athénaïs was far less clever than the egotistical witch thought she was. Carefully, she threw the wand out of the window, reached into her undergarments and withdrew two of her three reserve wands and tossed them out the window too. The third reserve wand was a design she’d copied from her mother. She wouldn’t dispose of that, but since it wasn’t assembled she couldn’t be caught with it. They’d no doubt search her at some point, and if she had a wand on her they’d use that to justify anything they’d do to her.  
  
What did they think she was, stupid? What kind of idiot put someone in a cell this easy to escape from unless they _wanted_ them to escape. Françoise Athénaïs was compensating for _something_ by being this blatant. If she was male, Eleanore would have thrown plenty of implications of masculine deficiencies at her, but alas, she wasn’t. And making fun of someone for their lack of bust was hard when you had quite conspicuously failed to inherit the de la Vallière tendency for buxomness yourself.  
  
Such a shame for her dear old ‘friend’ that there were so many other things she could make fun of her for.  
  
Despite all that, she desperately longed to be free. She was scared. You would have to be a fool to not be scared when you were in a situation like this. Françoise Athénaïs would rig the court. But if she had anything which would give her a certain prosecution, she would have simply had Eleanore arrested according to standard procedure.  
  
Her most certain means of getting Eleanore to incriminate herself would be to make it easy for her to flee and have her killed when she escaped. Or failing that, use her escape as self-incrimination. And either way, she’d then move against her family. Cattleya couldn’t inherit b-because… and Louise was missing and hadn’t been much of a viable heir anyway, so if they could dispose of her, the primary line of the de la Vallière family would be barren. Her cousins were… de la Vallières of the old school. She loathed them.  
  
So much as it disgusted her, Eleanore knew she was safest for now by staying right where she was. Even if her blood was boiling, telling her that she needed to find a way to silently murder Françoise Athénaïs without being seen to leave the cell. She had to stay calm. Serene. Under control.  
  
Sitting down on the bed, Eleanore crossed her legs and began to practice the meditation she’d learned from a quite interesting wandering orange-robed monk from the Mystic East. She’d learned a few other things from him. Like some things about their decadent culture and how monks there – utterly disgracefully and yet intriguingly – weren’t expected to be chaste. Also, how to punch a man in the chest in just a way to make sure his solar plexus shattered and punctured both lungs so he drowned on his own blood.  
  
And, well. If anyone broke into her quarters to try to plant evidence, they’d find a horrible array of particularly spiteful traps. She was rather fond of some of them, especially the inventively lethal one in the bedpost that activated if the floor panels were disabled. Intricate mechanisms were something she’d always been good at. Probably a part of her de la Vallière heritage.

* * *

Hood up, white cat on her shoulder, Louise de la Vallière stepped out of the kitchen entrance of the university and strode past the carts and out onto the narrow streets of Amstreldamme. And that was pretty much precisely followed with the voices in her head chiming to life from her gauntlet.  
  
Louise winced, and pressed her hand to her ear.  
  
“Where have you been? Why weren’t you talking? Or listening?” Henrietta exploded.  
  
“She’s alive?” an attractively demonic male voice boomed in the background.  
  
“Yes!” Henrietta shouted back. “Louise Françoise!” she snapped. “What on the Lord’s earth did you think you were playing at?”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Louise apologised, swapping Pallas away from trying to bat at her hood. “I was running for my life! Didn’t have breath to spare! And also hiding!”  
  
“I was so worried!”  
  
“So was I!” Louise coughed, and ducked behind a wall. She was drawing attention. “I mean, I’m sorry you were worried, but I was terrified. I wasn’t thinking properly. I’m sorry.”  
  
Henrietta let out a slow sigh. “Don’t you ever dare do that again! I mean that! Princess’ orders! Never ever ever ever sneak off like that!”  
  
Louise felt that at this point she should probably be technically pointing out that Princess Henrietta de Tristain was her captive and thus her authority to issue such commands was abrogated. What she actually said, however, was “Um.”  
  
“Was she in the university?” Gnarl’s wizened voice said. “There’s ancient magic in that place. Especially with her incomplete tower heart, it’ll be hard to hear from her when she’s in that place. Your wickedness, it is bad to hear from you again. I wasn’t looking forwards to having to find a new overlady on short notice. But I’m sure I’d have managed.”  
  
Ah. It was good to hear from Gnarl again. In the Evil sense of the word. “Gnarl,” Louise said, circling the building. “I have confirmed a fragment is present in the university. I felt it.”  
  
“Well, that is diabolical,” Gnarl said happily. “Dire work, your darkness.”  
  
“Now,” Louise commanded, “put Cattleya on.”  
  
“Hi! Louise! It’s so good to hear that you’re not dead! Or undead! Or trapped! We were so worried, and Jessica was so on fire which is even worse!”  
  
“I’m sorry for worrying you,” Louise said. “Now-”  
  
“Are you sorry for Jessica being on fire?” Cattleya asked.  
  
“Yes, that too,” Louise said brusquely. “Listen. Catt.”  
  
“Mraa?” asked Pallas.  
  
“… not you, cat. Cattleya. The Madame de Montespan has arrested Eleanore and most of her allies at the university. The entire city is under martial law. I’ve managed to escape them for now, but getting out of here is not going to be easy. In the worst case, I’ll stay on the run until nightfall until you can show up.”  
  
“Oh _sugar_ ,” Cattleya swore. “That flipping mother-sucking _witch_.”  
  
“Steady now,” Louise said, paling slightly at the language Cattleya was using. While she was _very angry_ about the Madame de Montespan herself, she wasn’t a homicidal vampire. “Breathe deeply, Catt. We’re going to stop her, do you understand?” She could almost hear her sister’s nod. “Now. Is there anyone in Amstreldamme who might be sympathetic to our cause, or who’s an ally? Jessica? Do you have any… uh, family members who you don’t hate too much who live here?”  
  
“She has run off and is… um, currently breaking things,” Henrietta said. Louise could almost hear the wince.  
  
Louise groaned, and ducked into a filthy stinking alleyway. “Drat. Well…”  
  
“I can think of someone,” Cattleya said. “I know her from my cult. But… uh, you might not like it.”  
  
“Why, Catt?” Louise asked warily. “Remember the trouble I’m in. I’m a bit desperate here.”  
  
“Well… uh, Magdalene is… well, she’s a bit mean.”  
  
“A bit mean?”  
  
“A bit mean. A large bit mean.”  
  
“Tell me it simply, Catt,” Louise said. “How many centi-Eleanores is she?”  
  
Cattleya sucked in a breath. “Maaaaaaybe… uh, seventy. Seventy to eighty. Well, seventy-five-ish.”  
  
“Seventy five?” Louise echoed faintly. “But most people don’t ever get above twenty! Do you mean she’s really three-quarters as mean as Eleanore?”  
  
“I know! She’s very mean! And hurtfully sarcastic, which is… gosh, at least thirty points of that rating.”  
  
Louise shook her head warily. “Are you sure you can’t think of anyone better?” she asked hopefully.  
  
“Louise, I’m a shut-in who barely got to leave the house,” Cattleya told her. “You should be lucky I know _one_ person there from my cult.”  
  
Slumping her shoulders, the vile overlady of darkness sighed. “Fine,” she said. “It’s a close thing, but it’s… it’s probably better.”  
  
“I’m sorry for not being more helpful,” Cattleya said. “You just need to hold on until nightfall and I’ll be here in a snap! But… um, Jessica hasn’t adjusted the fit of my sunproof suit yet so… um, it doesn’t fit over my chest and… um, hips. Um. Sorry?”  
  
Louise ground her teeth at the reminder that her sister was a member of the undiet.  
  
“Wait. Can we just go back a little? _Centi-Eleanores?_ You use one hundredths of your elder sister for measuring how mean someone is?” Henrietta asked, fascinated. “That’s… a thing you _both_ do?”  
  
Louise frowned. “She’s my eldest sister,” she said, in a tone of voice which was very carefully trying not to imply that the heir to the throne was an idiot. “Of course I measure ‘mean’ in terms of her. And I can’t measure using just Eleanores. It’s too big for a useful measurement. We’d be measuring most people using values from 0.01 to 0.1 Eleanores. The centi-Eleanore is easier.”  
  
“It’s her fault I’m a blood-drinking undead monstrosity who hungers for the vital essence of the living, a creature of the night whose foul hungers drive her on in an endless mockery of life,” Cattleya added. “The curse lingers within me, driving me onwards to-”  
  
“Catt, you’re fasting until I get back home alive and in one piece,” Louise snapped. “I don’t care if you’re getting hungry and that you just helped me! You need to lose weight!”  
  
“Aww.”  
  
“Now. Give me directions to wherever this Magdalene woman lives.”


	45. Most Ethical Academic 9-2

_“Too long! Too long have we tolerated the depredations of wickedneſs! Too long have we let any two-lira wicked-doer invade our world from the vile Abyſs of blaſphemies and malevolence. My children, I tell you this muſt change! We muſt exterminate the wicked – not one by one, but all at once on a ſcale not appreciated before! Cleanſe your ſouls and be ready, my faithful, for we muſt be ready for ſyſtematic ſlaughter of a ſort which ſhall never be ſeen again! Ready for the day of reckoning – and Good, not Evil ſhall win! Not a damned ſoul ſhall be left alive in the Abyſs when it is cleanſed, and thuſly Good will triumph!”_  
  
–  Pope Benevolence III, ‘A Manifeſto for the Neceſſary and Syſtematic Deſtruction of all Evil Forever No Matter the Coſt’

* * *

The townhouse was a looming structure of smoke-dirtied grey granite on the corner where two streets met. It was not officially a gothic edifice because Halkeginia had not undergone an architectural movement which paralleled the Gothic, but nevertheless, it was totally a cursed and shadowed gothic edifice.  
  
Louise swallowed. She’d seen considerably more evil structures in her time – and technically lived in one – but it left her with a feeling which was more than just foreboding. Fiveboding, perhaps. Maybe even more.  
  
“Mrraaa,” said Pallas, shifting around on her shoulder.  
  
“I’m not sure if that’s meant to be encouraging or an instruction for me to run far, far away,” Louise told the cat as she edged closer, taking smaller steps than she really wanted to admit.  
  
“Mrr.”  
  
When the cord by the door was pulled, a deep, sonorous bell tolled out. The noise disrupted the ravens nesting in the trees, and they took flight with a raucous cawing.  
  
“Are you sure that’s the right address?” Louise whispered into her gauntlet.  
  
“Yes,” Cattleya said firmly. “This is the residence of Lady Magdalene van Delft. She runs the cult. Well, she doesn’t run it because it worships Femin-Anark and thus it’s disestablishmentarian and non-hierarchical in its gynosyndicalism, but she’s the one who shouts at people and organises the meetings. So she’s like the leader, but not, but is really.”  
  
Louise blinked. “What does that mean?” she asked, before suspicion compelled her to add, “and since when have you known words that long?”  
  
“I know! I learned all sorts of thing at the cult!” Cattleya said happily, somehow failing to hear the first question.  
  
Any further explanations were interrupted as with a rusty squeaking and a long, drawn-out groan, the door creaked open. A gust of cool air hit Louise in the faint, accompanied with a faint scent of lavender, lilies and amaranth.  
  
“Excuse me?” asked the butler. “And who might you be?”  
  
Frowning, Louise took in the plump and quite rounded man. He looked to be in his forties, his head was very shiny, and… uh, he seemed rather out of place in this macabre spectacle. Behind him, she could just about see a maid in a sensible brown outfit dusting. “I’m an acquaintance of a friend of the lady’s,” she said. “I was in the neighbourhood, and Lady Carmine asked me to pass along her best wishes. My name is…” Louise’s mind blanked. Oh flip. She wasn’t good with making up names. “Lady Ubermadchen von Daark,” she said.  
  
One of the butler’s eyebrows raised. “You speak Tristainian very well, my lady,” he said. “I can’t hear a trace of your accent.”  
  
“Oh, I was educated in Tristain,” she said hastily. “It was in preparation for an expected marriage, but that was called off after my would-be-husband… uh, fell in battle.” She paused. “It was most tragic,” she added. “And I’m not part of the main von Daark family line. A mere cadet branch, I’m afraid.”  
  
“Ah, that would explain it,” the butler said, stepping back. “I was somewhat confused, because my second cousin never mentioned a daughter.”  
  
“I beg your pardon.”  
  
“Oh, I have family in eastern Germania, serving the ancient and brave von Daarks, glorious and heroic defenders against the barbarians of the East,” the butler said. “I will see if the lady is available, and in the meantime would you care for some fruit juice or wine, milady?”  
  
Louise forced herself to smile, suppressing the panic which had filled her. “Fruit juice would be lovely,” she said. “It is nice to be a guest in a household which pays attention in such a matter. It is a trifle warm outside.” Though it was not warm in here – a strange chill lingered in the air.  
  
“It’s very kind of you to say so, milady,” the butler said.  
  
Waiting in the cool, Louise found herself unable to relax fully. Her thoughts were still running over what had happened today, again and again. She couldn’t supress the thought that perhaps the butler had seen through her paper thin false name – or even now was checking the genealogies to see if the name she claimed for herself truly existed. And what was happening? Was that _witch_ dragging Eleanore off to the execution block even now?  
  
The sound of advancing footsteps roused her from her contemplating, as the same maid in the brown dress entered, a glass of orange juice on a tray. She passed it to Louise and curtseyed, and then paused as she misunderstood Louise’s apprehension.  
  
“Please don’t judge us poorly for the state of this place,” the mousy maid said quietly. “The master acquired this place by marriage, and I am afraid it was rather neglected beforehand. We’ve been trying our very best to make it more comfortable, but… well, there is a history of misery and wickedness in this house.”  
  
Louise very nearly raised an eyebrow at that. Did the girl not realise she was talking to a figure wearing a sinister black robe who refused to lower their hood? Was her disguise really so effective that no one seemed to assume there was anything unusual about someone who was wearing a metal glove on her left hand? Did the Gauntlet have some sort of effect that turned everyone around her into idiots? Hmm. That last one would certainly account for quite a lot of minionly behaviour if it were true. Maybe they’d been around it so long it had just sort of sunk in and kept them that way.  
  
Her question was implicitly answered when the lady of the house made her appearance. Lady Magdalene van Delft was statuesque, full-figured and as pale as death. The ‘are you sure she’s not a blood-drinking queen of the night because she really reminds me of Cattleya’ theme was continued with her blood red lips, long straight black hair which reached the small of her back, deep violet eyes and her lilac-trimmed black gown. Louise wasn’t entirely sure, but she had an uncanny feeling that the room had got colder when she walked in.  
  
Clearly the maid’s sense of the natural had been permanently warped by exposure to the lady. Louise sighed internally. She’d have more people taking her seriously if she looked like that. She wasn’t jealous! Not at all! But the lady did manage to pull off a classic Tristainian beauty very well and… and… and at least Louise would find it easier for armour to fit and… and her back didn’t hurt! So unfair and mean and…  
  
Lady Magdalene coughed.  
  
The overlady elevated her eyes, blushing.  
  
“Lady von Daark,” the older woman said. “So nice to finally meet you! I have heard many tales of you from Carmine!”  
  
“I just hope they’re good,” Louise said, almost without thinking. “Carmine can be… a trifle empty-headed.”  
  
Magdalene smiled in a way which was slightly cold and imperious and notably didn’t show her teeth at all. “Well, yes. She is Carmine,” she said. “Nice girl, but I’m not sure she’s all there in the head.”  
  
At this point Louise was split. On one hand, no one got to insult Cattleya like that, apart from Eleanore and that was not so much ‘got to’ as ‘was so incredibly mean you couldn’t stop her’. On the other hand, she couldn’t deny it was grounded in reality. More grounded in reality than Cattleya, anyway, who tended to have her head in the clouds. “She’s always been like that, I’m afraid,” she said.   
  
“Ha! No doubt!” Magdalene looked the cloaked figure up and down. “I think we should retire to my reading room. It is rather more comfortable and no doubt if you know Carmine you would be interested in seeing my collection. Claudine, that will be all. Return to your duties.”  
  
The doe-eyed maid leaned in. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer me to wait on you?” she asked, her tone somewhat insubordinate.  
  
“No, I believe that will be quite fine. Return to the dusting,” the lady ordered. “Come on, Ubermadchen. This way.”  
  
She led Louise through dusty corridors lined with faded paintings which rather resembled the kind of paintings that one found in the de la Vallière household. By contrast, her reading room seemed to have all the attention lavished on it that much of the rest of the house lacked. All the wallspace and every surface was covered in books. Well-cushioned seats the colour of wine were scattered throughout the floorspace which was not covered in books. Louise, as something of a bibliophile, felt like she’d stepped into a small heaven. Lady Magdalene waved her wand and lit the magelights, and then carefully closed the door behind her. A great black cat – no domestic tabby, but one of the great predators of Ind – slunk around the furniture, to rub against her legs as she cleared books off one of the seats and offered the chair to Louise.  
  
“We can talk here with a degree of openness,” Magdalene said, her voice chilly. “This study is cork-lined. I don’t know which ancestor decided to do it and for what purposes, but it is quite a blessing. Now, ‘Ubermadchen’, what on earth are you doing here? And incidentally, that was exceptionally stupid of you. Really? ‘Ubermadchen’?”  
  
“It is a Germanian first name,” Louise said a trifle chilly as she took the offered seat. She already knew it was stupid. She didn’t need anyone else to point it out.  
  
“True, but only within very… _certain_ kinds of family. The kind of family who in Tristain would be calling their daughters things like ‘Agonista’ and ‘Tormenta’. And the von Daarks are far too heroic for that kind of thing.” She shook her head, and settled herself down, her familiar resting its head on her lap. “Incredibly stupid! I can’t believe I’m being stupid enough to even let you in the house! After promising to myself I wouldn’t let myself be dragged into another political fiasco!”  
  
Nodding stiffly, Louise considered what to say. “This is a great favour you are doing for me, and I will remember it,” she said, as Pallas slipped off her shoulder. The little white cat leapt down and found a cushion where she immediately went to sleep.  
  
“On your honour as an overlady?” Magdalene asked sardonically. “Speaking of which, I rather thought you would be…” her gaze swept Louise up and... well, it was more like down and further down, really. “… taller.”  
  
“Yes, actually,” Louise retorted, gritting her teeth and ignoring the barb about her height. She sighed. She wanted to take off the hood, but she couldn’t do that. It would entail revealing her identity and that was unacceptable. “Can we at least be pleasant to each other first?” she said, looking around. “I must say, I like your library.”  
  
“Oh?” Madgalene sat back, stroking her familiar’s head. “I must say that surprises me. For all the claptrap I said out there, I must say that Carmine is _quite_ unbookish and her taste is atrocious.”  
  
Again, Louise winced. “That is… not untrue,” she said diplomatically. “Her taste is quite low-brow at times.” She half-turned and looked at the nearest book. It was one she recognised. “Oh. ‘Instructions on the Correct Behaviour For A Goodly Wife, With Manifold Examples Of How Sin Might Be Averted’,” she said.  
  
“You’ve read it?”  
  
Louise scowled. She had. Her parents had bought it for her for her sixteenth birthday. “It was dreadful pulp that should be burned,” she said darkly.  
  
Lady Magdalene’s face widened into a delighted smile. “I know! I really don’t understand why on earth anyone praised it! My husband bought it for me – and I must say that no doubt made his skin crawl from touching a book!”  
  
“I don’t see why you even have it in here,” Louise said, shaking her head. “It wasn’t the worst book I’ve ever read, but it had to be in the bottom ten.”  
  
“If you must know the truth, it’s that the leather binding makes it a comfortable armrest,” the other woman said.  
  
Louise raised her eyebrows. “Goodness,” she said. “A productive use for it. I would never have thought such a thing to be possible.”  
  
Lady Magdalene laughed and Louise’s heart leapt. Perhaps she had a chance.

* * *

“And stay out, you ragamuffin! Street rats like you aren’t welcome in here!”  
  
The kitchen doors opened, and a foul-smelling diminutive form dressed in an assortment of stolen clothes was thrown out.  
  
“Oi!” it shouted back.  
  
“I’m telling you! See you lurking around here again, and I’ll give you a proper kicking, I will!”  
  
Cursing, swearing, and gesturing with a long-bladed dagger in the direction of the man, the totally-a-child-and-not-a-minion in disguise ran off.  
  
Sitting on the rooftops above, Igni sadly shook his head. That human child was utterly terrible at breaking into the kitchens and looting food. Chewing loudly on the leg of ham he’d stolen and charred into minionish edibility, Igni considered his current situation. He was alone. He had lost the overlady. If he returned to the tower without her, he’d probably be horribly tortured to death. Repeatedly. She wasn’t dead, because the familiar runes on his hand were still there. So his next step was obviously to find the overlady to avoid his fate _vis a vis_ being horribly repeatedly tortured to death for losing her.  
  
He sighed. He really wished Maxy or Maggat were here. They were cunninger than him. Without the overlady here to tell him what to do, he would have to – dramatic pause – try to work out what she’d want him to do and then do it.  
  
Igni sighed to himself. Clearly a sign he’d been hanging around with Maxy for some long. He had picked up some of the curse of melon drama.   
  
Pulling himself to his feet, he began to nimbly scramble up the rough stone wall. He wasn’t as good as climbing as a green, but all minions were incredibly strong for their size and had a powerful grip. Old stone like this wasn’t too hard to climb, and he was following his nose for Evil. Overlords usually liked you looking for Evil. You’d either find shinies for them to loot, or find rivals for them to kill. And then loot.  
  
“Oh, no, of course I won’t try to escape, my dear madame de Marzipan,” he heard a voice full of latent Evil, casual cruelty and malice say. Which was to say, a voice which sounded very much like the overlady. It was probably the oversister. Not the vampy oversister, who was back in the tower, but the other oversister.  
  
“Montespan,” the horrible Hero who looked so much like the overlady said.  
  
“I beg your pardon?”  
  
“De Montespan. Not de Marzipan.”  
  
“Excuse me? Have you ever considered clearing your ears out? That’s what I said, Françoise Athénaïs. De Montespan. Now, I would no more consider escaping than you would consider – oh, say, committing treason.”  
  
… minionkind needed a name for the other oversister. It was so confusing that the overlady had two oversisters. Igni scaled the wall until he could perch on the overhang above the barred window.  
  
“Your vile insinuations will have no effect here,” the heinous Hero said softly. “There is no one here to hear your lying words.”  
  
Igni considered whether he should point out that he was, in fact, just outside. He decided against it. He wasn’t quite as stupid as Fettid. Usually. At least fifty percent of the time.  
  
“My goodness, I’m not insinuating anything,” the oversister said, in that same smirking tone that the overlady used when she was anticipating tormenting things, or had just kicked the jester in the face. “If I was insinuating things, I’d make reference to certain documents which have come into my possession stored in my quarters which entail certain… illicit involvements of yours. If you know what I mean.”  
  
“I’m not going to fall for that,” retorted the Hero. Igni was bored of thinking of her that way and was running out of words beginning with H- to alliterate, so he decided to call her Marzipan instead in his head. Igni liked marzipan, especially minionish marzipan which used bitter almonds and was lethal to most other creatures. “Quite enough brave guardsmen have already been lost attempting to penetrate your private quarters.”  
  
“Uh uh uh. It is illegal under university law to search the rooms of someone with tenure without a warrant gained from a properly assembled university court, under clauses CCC.1(3), CCCI.3(12), CCCI.3(13)…”  
  
“Be quiet.”  
  
“Actually, no, I believe that this is entirely pertinent. These authorities are under the third proclamation of Amstreldamme passed indefinitely from the crown to the university authorities, and furthermore without a duly issued revocation – which must be presented to the full University Council, which I am a member of…”  
  
“Be quiet!” Marzipan said, raising her voice for the first time and letting some emotion into her tone. “Or I will have you gagged. Which seems about the only way to make you to shut up.”  
  
“Ah, yes, gagging. I do believe that’s a vital part of your research into wards, is it not?”  
  
“I will not stand here and be insulted any longer.”  
  
“I do believe the guard has a stool. You could borrow that.”  
  
There was the sound of a person trying very hard to not dignify that with a response.  
  
“Oh! Or you could kneel. As we both know, you’re entirely used to spending time on your hands and knees. Your loudly voiced devotions to Lord and Founder are well known. ‘Oh Lord!’ Truly the holy ecstasy of faith has descended upon you, filling you with its essence.”  
  
Igni nodded firmly. She sounded in pain when she prayed, which was very normal for people praying in the proximity of minions.  
  
“You are literally the worst human being ever!” Marzipan declared, storming out. Her feet disappeared down the corridor, and then reappeared. “I know you stole the Malevolene Fragment,” she said in a cold, low voice. “I will find it. Such a powerful tool of Evil will not be permitted to remain in the hands of one such as you.”  
  
“What’s a Malevolene Fragment?” the oversister asked innocently. Igni leaned forwards, his pointed ears perking up. That sounded interesting. And much like a tower heart fragment.  
  
“You know what. In your corruption, you stole it from the university and have hidden it somewhere. I know it.”  
  
“And I will be more than willing to answer any such charges in the proper university court,” the oversister said. “In the meantime, I believe visiting hours are over.”  
  
“… what? There are no visiting hours. And this is my jail.”  
  
“Shh! The warden gets short tempered if guests stay too long. Do you want to get me in trouble?”  
  
Marizpan marched off again, this time for good. Igni heard the oversister lie back on her bed, humming. He saw a pigeon, and barely resisted the urge to throw a fireball at it – and only then because he’d just eaten a whole ham. Deep in thought, he contemplated what to do next.  
  
Then he heard a high-pitched squeaking noise from within the cell. Curiosity overcoming him, he hung down and risked poking his head through the window.   
  
The oversister was strapped to the ceiling!  
  
Oh wait, no, he was upside down. Oh yes. She was sitting on the bed, a golden monkey with a mane and a dark face perching on her lap. Igni, remarkably knew what this was. A former overlord had had them invade the lands to the south west, across the Great Western Ocean, which was much greater and more oceanic than the Great North Sea. There had been lots of jungles, lots of lizards, and strange stepped pyramids filled with very lootable gold. That creature was a golden lion tamarin, also known as a golden marmoset. Igni remembered that because, contrary to the name, they were not made of gold. Or lions. Or marmalade.  
  
They had been tasty, though.  
  
“Who’s a good boy?” cooed the oversister. “You are! You are! You stole her purse without her noticing when I was distracting her! Such a clever, clever little boy. Now, let’s see if there’s any interesting things in here?” She rummaged through the purse. “Money – ha! Hardly much use in my current situation. And oh! An amulet with a little picture of Jean-Jacques.”  
  
She pulled it out, and slipped the picture out, considering it.   
  
“Oh dear.” she said flatly. “My fingers slipped.”  
  
In fact, her fingers slipped repeatedly, and tore the picture into lots of little pieces. Then she carefully put it back in the purse.  
  
The familiar chirruped.  
  
“Oh, I wasn’t scared she’d gag me. If I was gagged, I couldn’t cast magic to escape, and she needs to do that. Meanwhile, if she’s suitably annoyed by me, she’ll leave me here to rot. Which means I don’t get to ‘enjoy’ her company which – alas! – is just one of the travails of life I must face. Now, I am afraid you will need to do another thing for me. I’d give you some sunflower seeds, but I find myself a little short. Nevertheless, please take the purse back to her townhouse, and leave it in her room, somewhere she’d naturally leave it. And do try not to shed fur on it.”  
  
The monkey squeaked at her. Igni was growing increasingly sure that it was her familiar. Like how the overlady had the minions. A little monkey like that was very nearly a minion, it seemed.  
  
“Yes, I know there’s a horrible red-skinned goblin who’s been listening to everything above the window,” the oversister said with malicious humour. She didn’t look up, but kept her hands in her lap.  
  
“Oi!” Igni objected. “I no is a goblin! I is a minion and…”  
  
It was at that point he realised that not only had he given himself away, but he had a wand pointed at his face.  
  
“I knew it,” the oversister said smugly, sighting down her wand. “Look at those well-defined horns, that homogenous coat colour, that deep brow ridge, and of course the distinctive odour. Clearly a minion. Now, where’s your overlady, minion?”  
  
Ah ha! An easy question. “I no know,” Igni said honestly, who was still trying to work around the word ‘homogenous’.  
  
The golden marmoset chittered at him insultingly.  
  
“Oi! Shut your face, or I is gonna give you such a beating!” Igni retorted.  
  
The marmoset squeaked at him.  
  
“Nuh uh! You is the stoopid one!”  
  
“Silence, minion. And you are a servant of the Overlady of the North?” said the oversister, her pink eyes glinting like… some kind of pink gemstone which glinted like her eyes glinted. Igni wasn’t sure. He didn’t know much about rocks, apart from the way they tasted.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
The oversister stretched, pacing back and forwards in the cell like a caged tiger. Now that Igni looked closer, the wand looked like it was made from multiple screwed together bits of wood. “Well, inform your mistress – who has my sister hostage – that the house of Françoise Athénaïs is full of things which are valuable and also things which are flammable, and more a few things which are both. I would of course be _loathe_ to pass along such information normally, but alas! With my little sister’s life in danger, I must do what I can to protect her and if I must compromise my morals,” her hand went to her brow, “and tell a wretched minion - who has so grotesquely threatened my sister - such things…”  
  
“I no threaten your sister,” Igni said, confused.  
  
“Yes, you did,” the oversister said firmly, one hand still to her brow. The other was of course still holding the wand pointed at his face. “That is the only reason I am telling you that there are many expensive things in her house, and it is likely very flammable. Now, go find your mistress and tell her those things! Only spare my little sister!”  
  
The golden lion tamarin made a rude gesture at Igni. Igni could respect that, and was growing increasingly sure that the oversister had a familiar which was basically as close to a minion as you could get without it literally being a minion.  
  
“Now, go away, or I will blow you off the wall,” the oversister said coldly. “Your breed is immune to fire, but you’re not immune to long falls.”  
  
Highly confused, Igni pulled himself up out of view. His brain was fairly sure that this was not how talks with prisoners were meant to go. And the oversister had used a lot of words which had been very long. And he had apparently threatened the overlady which is something he would never do, but she said he had.  
  
Still, now he had a Clue. A Clue that there were lots of shiny and burnable things in the Marzipan de Marzipan Hero living place. The overlady would probably want to know that, yes?  
  
… now, where was the overlady?  
  
Igni resumed his epic quest.

* * *

“So de Bosque’s translation of ‘Journey to the Occident’?”  
  
“Dross! Utter dross! If it had been any more wooden, it would have floated!”  
  
“I know!”  
  
Louise and the lady van Delft were getting on well. In fact, Magdalene looked positively ecstatic. “Carmine mentioned you, but she didn’t say you actually had good taste! It’s wonderful!” Her voice dropped. “No one at the cult wants to talk about books like I do! They just want to talk about the books they liked and what were their favourite ones! And worship dark gods, which I consider to be jolly well missing the point! I chose the dark gods we’d worship with a lot of care to meet the proper standards! Not ones with squamous tentacles! And then _certain people_ wanted to take things rather more seriously than I was willing to tolerate!”  
  
Louise frowned. “I don’t follow,” she said, ignoring the talk about dark gods. Pallas had moved from her cushion onto her lap, and Louise was tickling her tummy. “But… why would you just want to talk about books you liked? Especially when there’s so much more you can say about bad ones.”  
  
“Do you know… do you know, they literally stop reading a book the moment they stop enjoying it?” Magdalene said, sounding scandalised.  
  
“Mraa,” Pallas said disapprovingly, batting at Louise’s fingers with her little white paws.  
  
Shaking her head sadly, Louise sighed. “Some people just don’t appreciate literature properly,” she said, giving the young cat a light flick on the nose. “There’s nothing quite like tearing something contemptible to shreds.”  
  
“Though at least they’re reading.”  
  
“Oh, yes. People who don’t read are just the worst. Absolutely, totally, utterly the worst,” Louise agreed. “Well, apart from people who steal people’s fiancés and people who are cheating fiancés and…” she paused. “Um. Wretched enemies of all kinds,” she added hastily.  
  
“No, no let me tell you what’s worse,” Lady Magdalene softly, jutting out her chin. Her long black hair fell in front of her face, and she blew it out of the way with an annoyed puff. Her black leopard padded over and rested its head on her lap, eying up Pallas as if it was considering what she would taste like. Which it probably was. “What are absolutely, positively worse are arranged marriages to people who are so ill-mannered and coarse and boorish that they consider books to be portable sources of firewood.”  
  
Louise paled. “Burning books?” she exclaimed. “You’re married to someone who’d do that?”  
  
The older woman coughed. “Of course not I love my husband my marriage is happy,” she said loudly, and then winced. “Sorry, force of habit there. He’s a lamentable bore and he has the servants spy on me, I’m sure of it. I don’t even know how on earth he managed to graduate from his academy – he went to the Academy of the Fighting Arts…”  
  
“Of course he did,” Louise, a proud would-have-been-an-graduate-of-the-Academy-of-Magic-if-it-wasn’t-for-um-stuff, said.  
  
“… and he certainly hasn’t ever been to university. And despite that, because he’s one of de Montespan’s toadies, he’s making decisions about it! That anti-intellectual swine! He has an ‘honorary degree’, can you believe it?”  
  
“That’s just awful,” Louise said softly. Her heart went out to her. Magdalene was some of the most intelligent company she’d had in years. Which would as a statement mean a lot more if she hadn’t spent a lot of the past two years surrounded by minions and before that she’d been surrounded by teenagers. She may have been ten years older than Louise, but the two of them got on quite well. She took a breath, and rose, cradling Pallas in her arms. She was sorry to bring the ‘talking about books’ bit to an end, but the mention of Montespan had reminded her why she was really here. At last she’d been able to settle her nerves.  
  
“Mrraaa!” Pallas protested, and jumped down, snuggling up in the warm seat where Louise had been sitting.  
  
“Very well, suit yourself,” Louise told the cat, and shook her head. She paced over to one of the grand bookshelves, running her hand down the lush leather spines of the books. “I fear I must speak of what brought me to your household,” she began, trying to seem as formal and wise as possible.  
  
“I fear you must, too,” Magdalene said. “Can’t we just talk about books some more?”  
  
“I am afraid not,” Louise said gravely. She had to sound professional and reliable and not stammer and try not to show that her stomach felt like it was filled with butterflies. “I have to say I planned none of this. It has been a pleasant surprise to meet you, but that was never part of my day. I was merely visiting the city when the Madame de Montespan went… well, as far as I can tell she went insane. She has declared martial law and arrested most of the staff of the university.”  
  
A noise not entirely unlike a boiling kettle escaped from between Lady Magdalene’s lips. “That witch!” she exclaimed.  
  
“You dislike her?” Louise asked, heart leaping with joy.  
  
“That’s one way to put it,” the older woman said darkly.  
  
Louise took a deep calming breath. This was the next step, the thing she’d got more and more certain about on the way over here. She’d probably be shouted at by Jessica for doing this, and worse, Gnarl would approve and call her a ‘real go-getter advancing the ways of Evil’ or something like that. But there was no other way. “There is also an artefact of great Evil in the university,” she said, mentally wincing at her by-now-automatic capitalisation of the word. “I fear that the Madame de Montespan may be after it. It – and other great powerful wonders – must be removed before she can get her hands on them.”   
  
Technically she wasn’t lying, Louise reassured herself. She did fear what would happen if de Montespan got her hands on the fragment of the tower heart. It wasn’t a justified fear as far as she knew, but she never said it was.  
  
“Well, I am in favour of annoying her. Oh, and probably advancing the cause of Evil,” Magdalene said, her attitude clearly indicating that she considered the former to be the superior incentive.  
  
“And you know what else she did?” Louise continued, getting more and more worked up. “She went and arrested Eleanore… Eleanore de la Vallière in the middle of a debate! Just because she was losing! That cheating little-”  
  
“So what?” Magdalene said.  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“So what if she arrested that spiteful cow?”  
  
Louise’s heart fell. Oh. Oh yes.  
  
The problem with persuading people to help Eleanore was that some of them had probably met her before.

* * *

The atmosphere was tense in the sitting room which had become the impromptu crisis centre back in the overlady’s tower. Jessica had stormed off, Gnarl had vanished somewhere, and Henrietta had returned with an armful of books she was now studying with a scowl. Only Cattleya seemed calm, and only then if you ignored the fact that her pupils were slightly smaller than they should have been and she twitched occasionally.  
  
“Aha!” Henrietta declared, looking up from the book of genealogies she was flicking through. “I thought I remembered that! The van Delfts are a new money family who made their money on the spice trade with Ind. Very wealthy indeed! But the wife of the current head of the family isn’t from their social circles. Lady Magdalene Marie Sanguine Alicia Violetta van Delft, nee _le Provost_.”  
  
“Ah!” Cattleya said brightly. “I… must say I don’t follow.”  
  
Henrietta raised her eyebrows. “I’m surprised you don’t know. Cattleya, ‘le Provost’ is one of the de la Vallière cadet lines.”  
  
Cattleya let out a sudden sigh of comprehension. “Of course! So that’s how she can be so mean! She’s kin to Eleanore! How close a relative is she?”  
  
Henrietta traced the lines back with her finger. “Her grandfather was your great-grandfather’s younger brother,” she said. “So that makes her a… um.” She thought. “Uh. Your third cousin, I think.”  
  
“Second cousin once removed,” Cattleya corrected her.  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
“I believe so!”  
  
“Grr. Founder, I hate cousin things,” Henrietta grumbled. “Which is quite a weakness as a princess, let me tell you that.” Her finger tapped the page. “Except, no, because her mother is from a de la Vallière distaff line. And her grandmother was… hmm, an unacknowledged bastard of my great grandfather.” She threw her hands up. “I give up!” she proclaimed. “Regardless, she’s related to you. And also to me. I think when I claim the throne, I shall ban cousin marriage if it means it is easier to memorise genealogies and how everyone is related! Who’s idea was this, anyway?”  
  
“The Bloody Duke’s,” Cattleya said quietly, her knuckles whitening on the arms of the chair. The wood splintered under her grasp. “The Bloody Duke liked to breed the family back into itself.”  
  
“Oh!” Henrietta said, looking vaguely nauseated. “So… uh, he was one of those sorts? Did he think family… um, tasted better?”  
  
“He did,” Cattelya said. “It wasn’t the only reason he did it – it wasn’t even the main reason – but yes, he did.” She hunched over. “I saw some of his memories when I killed him. When I sank my teeth in and drank his blood and ate his soul.”   
  
“It’s a jolly good thing he’s dead!” Henrietta said, false brightness in her voice. “Or re-dead or…”  
  
“I’m glad I did,” Cattleya says in the same low, flat tone. “I saw what he felt when he was feeding on me.” She fell silent. “He liked the way I tasted. Liked it a lot.”  
  
“Uh…”  
  
“But he was also disappointed. I wasn’t what he was breeding for. I wasn’t good enough for him. He didn’t even think I was useful as breeding stock after he tasted my blood. It didn’t have what he was looking for. He stared down at me when I was just ten, and decided that I wouldn’t be any good for breeding from, so he might as well drain me over the course of a few nights as to make sure I turned into a fairly powerful vampire. I wasn’t any use for his project, so he decided to do… to do _this_ to me to hurt my parents. Upset them,” she continued. “Maybe I’d be one of the ones who went berserk when I died and might kill one of them. He’d have found that hilarious. He was chuckling smugly to himself about that idea as he did it.”  
  
Cattelya wasn’t crying. She didn’t sound upset. Henrietta would really have preferred had she been upset. Then she could have offered a hug. As it was, she was rather concerned that going too close to Cattleya might result in the loss of some of her blood. And Henrietta liked her blood. She used it to keep herself alive. Speaking with her professional opinion as a water mage and a fair healer, it was rather important.  
  
“And now my little sister is in danger and I can’t go out to help her because I’m _dead_ and if I went out in the sun like this I’d burn up even if I pigged out on blood first and… and I _hate_ this. I’ve spent the past ten years trapped inside, never seeing the sun, this hunger gnawing inside me, twisting and writhing and… and I’m an immortal monster who can only really die if another vampire eats me alive and I can’t do a _thing_.”  
  
Henrietta shuffled closer to the door.  
  
Cattelya perked up. “But that’s enough about me!” she said brightly. “Let’s put our heads together and see if we can think up anything to help Louise! Oh, when she gets back I’m going to have to act like Mother and give her a jolly big scolding for going anywhere without telling us! And without wearing her armour or taking her horde of adorable little goblins with her. Although Mother probably wouldn’t say that!”

* * *

In the study, the great grandfather clock with a skull-shaped face ticked away the seconds.  
  
“Well, I mean, it’d really annoy de Montespan if Eleanore escaped?” Louise tried, wheedling. There was a raven cawing loudly at the window, but she ignored it.  
  
“That is true… but it’d really annoy me if she was free. I’m just considering things, blast it,” Magdalene hissed.  
  
“What on earth do you need to consider?”  
  
“Who I dislike more! I went to school with both of them and the three of us _used_ to be friends and trust me, I have plenty of reason to more than strongly dislike them!”  
  
Oh.  
  
Louise watched in bemusement as Magdalene strode up and down muttering to herself. She then pulled an abacus out of her pockets, and started flicking beads around. Fetching a slate from a desk overloaded with books and some chalk, she sat down and started jotting down maths. Louise was glad Igni was missing because it wasn’t even the usual kind of minion-scaring maths. It was the kind of maths which uses letters in place of numbers, and thus couldn’t be worked out on one’s fingers and toes.  
  
“… and if we look at dh/dt… yes, and then integrate to sum over all time…”  
  
The overlady watched in awe. She hadn’t put quite this much work into deciding how much she hated people. She tended to use a much more simple ladder ranking. If it weren’t for the circumstances, she might be tempted to ask for lessons.  
  
“Fine!” the older woman eventually concluded. “I dislike Marzipan slightly more. But only because my husband is one of her flunkies.”  
  
“Uh.” The overlady looked blank. “Marzipan?”  
  
“Françoise Athenais,” Magdalene said, blushing slightly. “It was her nickname at school. She always hated it.”  
  
Louise bit her lip and made a note of that for future reference. “There is a slight chance there may be some widespread use of fire, lightning and magical pink acid,” she suggested artlessly. “Accidents happen. Possibly in the vicinity of the Madame de Montespan.”  
  
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” Magdalene said sniffily. She paused. “Although I do believe she has those collections of paper screen walls in her townhouse which she gathered from the Mystic East,” she added.  
  
Louise locked her eyes on the books, clasping her hands together. She had to do this right. “S-so you’ll help de la Vallière?” she asked as artlessly as she could manage. Which wasn’t very artlessly.  
  
Magdalene scowled and her leopard growled. “You don’t understand!” she snapped, a flush coming to her pale cheeks. “I don’t want to help either of them! We were all in the same year at school! I used to like both of them! We were friends!”  
  
Oh my, thought Louise. That must have been a really tough class at the Academy for their classmates. That means there were at least two Eleanores of mean in the year between the three of them.  
  
“And then everything changed and both of them changed and Eleanore got her damn monkey and we didn’t go adventuring with Jean Jacques anymore and… I tried to make it up with Marzipan years later, but then she went and…” Magdalene bit her lip. “Why am I even telling you this?” she demanded.  
  
“I don’t know,” Louise snapped back. “I didn’t even ask you!”  
  
Surprisingly, the older woman laughed. Perhaps it was something about how just how piqued Louise sounded. “Well. I’ll help you with the Evil artefact at least,” she said. “De la Vallière? We’ll see.”  
  
The overlady sighed. “Thank you,” she said, wracking her brain for cheap and easy ways to butter her up. “I’ll make sure the Cabal hears of your assistance.”  
  
“The what?”


	46. Most Ethical Academic 9-3

_“The problem I have always found with the use of virginal sacrifices to maintain one’s youth – quite apart from your bratty eldest whining about you looking like you could be his younger sister when you overshoot – is that humans are rather lacking in blood and one needs an inconvenient number of them to fill the average bath. I must find a new source, because my experimentation with non-human blood sources has revealed that there are undesirable side effects. I will need to remember that dragon blood transforms me into a terrifying and beautiful draconic hybrid and save a virgin dragon for emergencies. I also wish I’d started with the dragon, rather than the cow.”_  
  
–  Madeline de la Vallière (née Ambracia)

* * *

“You mean we’re _sport_ to demons?” Lady Madgalene hissed, as Louise pulled her by her hand towards the university. The blue sky overhead was warm and gentle and not at all appropriate for the fell deeds which were about to happen.  
  
The overlady considered the point. “More akin to a theatrical performance,” she said. “Of course, they have their own theatres where they break into the dreams of mortals and use them for their entertainment, but… yes, I would say they consider Halkeginia all one great form of entertainment.”  
  
Magdalene’s eyes narrowed. “The _swine_ ,” she hissed. “So they’ve just been using us! And not in the way demons are meant to use you! At the very least they could have the common decency for it to be some kind of grand scheme! Some kind of ploy to ultimately overthrow righteousness or something of that ilk! Not something for… for _low-class_ demons to read about in news journals and-”  
  
“Shh,” Louise whispered, pressing her back against a wall. She leaned around the corner. There were guards by the gates to the university. She pursed her lips. “Do you know a way into the university?” she asked. “One that won’t be guarded?”  
  
Lady Magdalene gave an arch smile. “I went here,” she said. “I was a proper young student, I will have you know.”  
  
“Yes?” Louise said dubiously. “Does that mean something?”  
  
“That means I know _plenty_ of ways to get in and out after curfew,” the older woman said smugly. “Let me think.” She frowned. “How do you feel about heights?”  
  
“Heights? I… I don’t mind them,” Louise said warily.  
  
“Good. There’s a building with a garret on Queen Marienne’s Way which backs up against the library. You can jump from the roof there to the library roof.”  
  
“Well, when I said I didn’t mind them…” Louise began.

* * *

The clock ticked in the rather-desolate room filled with ruined party preparations. Cattlelya and Henrietta sat, each pouring over books.  
  
Henrietta cleared her throat.  
  
“Bless you,” Cattleya said generously.  
  
“… thank you. So. Um. I see that Louise Françoise appears to be getting on well with your mutual some-kind-of-cousin.”  
  
“Oh, indeed,” Cattleya said, nodding. She frowned, pink hair falling in front of her face as she leaned forwards. “That worries me a little bit. Magdalene is rather mean. That she’s getting along so well with little Louise might mean Louise has gained a few centi-Eleanores of mean in the meantime. Hee. Mean time.”  
  
Cattleya giggled, and looked inordinately proud of herself for making a joke, and Henrietta didn’t have it in her to say anything about that. “Possibly,” she instead said diplomatically. “But still! There has to be a way of getting her out safely before sunset!”  
  
“If there was one, I’m all ears,” Cattleya said earnestly. “Apart from the bits of me which aren’t ears. So really it’s that my ears are all ears, which is a trifle tautological.”  
  
There was a hesitant knock at the door. Henrietta frowned. The number of people in the tower who would knock politely at a door was slim indeed. Gnarl was known to do it occasionally, but mostly he just sidled in or – as was frequently the case – turned out to have been here all along, usually standing right behind you. And Cattleya was here with her, Jessica was still off breaking things, so…  
  
… oh, what the heck. She was feeling too worried about Louise and generally stressed to play these kind of mind games. “Yes?” she asked.  
  
A young man let himself in. A… a rather handsome young man, Henrietta considered abstractly. In fact, so handsome that when she stared at his face her eyes began to water as she thought of her poor-deceased love and…  
  
Henrietta worked her jaw. “Jessica?” she tried, pulling a fresh handkerchief out of her pocket and blowing her nose. “Why are you… uh, taking on a male form?”  
  
“Not my choice, Henri,” Jessica said miserably.  
  
“Um? Excuse me?” Henrietta said, dabbing at her eyes.  
  
“Oh!” Cattleya said brightly. “Are you a wereman? But wait… it’s not full moon…”  
  
Jessica slumped down on a chair, running her hands through her sinfully long hair which looked incredibly attractive on a man. “Close, but no cigar.” She took a deep breath, let it out, and then took a fresh one. “Okay. Let me put it to you this way. I’m a girl. I was born a girl. But, um… puberty is a thing for incubi and succubae too. Before we get to… uh, about eleven-twelve-thirteen, there really isn’t much difference between boys and girls. You know, like human kids. Well, we’re slightly less Evil than them, but apart from that, yeah.”  
  
Cattleya’s eyes widened. “Oh Founder!” she exclaimed. “I never even thought about that! How adorable little demons must be! With their itty bitty horns and teeny weeny hoovsies and… are their fingernails just as tiny and cute? Or maybe claws? Are they cute claws?” Cattleya paused, probably for breath so she could continue talking. “I am quite sure that they’re cute claws.”  
  
Jessica ignored her. “Then puberty hits like a kick to the face. Literally in some cases, because some of us lose our second set of teeth and get our meat teeth. Not me, luckily. Teething was bad enough once already. But… well. I basically had my human female bits trying to grow into an adult woman, and my demon bits going ‘you are the incarnation of masculinity’ and the human side just… uh. Got mostly overwhelmed.” She sniffed. “Okay, it just got totally overwhelmed.”  
  
Henrietta coughed, averting her eyes to try to stop herself from crying. It wasn’t working. Jessica was radiating an aura of what the demons called _pawpst’ar eyedol_ which seemed to creep in through her nose and her incredibly attractive voice that made her think of her dead prince. “So, uh, you’re really… um… like this. In every way? All over? In… uh, every way?”  
  
“Take my word for it,” Jessica said darkly. “None of us want a demonstration.”  
  
“I certainly don’t!” Cattleya exclaimed indignantly. “Poor Jessica! You’re much better how you normally look. This look does not suit you! At all!”  
  
Jessica managed a watery smile at Cattleya. “Thank you,” she said. “So, anyway, normally I take potions which keep my body human and female, but… well. When I really let out the demon side, deliberately or not, the potions just get overwhelmed because… uh, my demon side is sort of the crown prince and second only to Dad in power. So the demonic power just, like, totally swamps me and when I de-demonise, I’m like this.”  
  
Henrietta considered saying something like ‘I know how you feel’, but decided that would be incredibly stupid because she had no idea whatsoever what it felt to have that happen. “There, there,” she said supportively instead. “So… uh, are… are you stuck like this?”  
  
“Oh, abyss no. It’ll just take a week or so for the potions to build up again in my system,” Jessica said darkly. “I hate it! I… I get a lot of people telling me I’m… I’m more attractive like this. It… it hurts. This… this isn’t me! It’s just my… my stupid demonic side forcing my body to look _different_. I look in the mirror and this isn’t me! You know?”  
  
“I can’t imagine, but it must be dreadful,” Henrietta said reassuringly.  
  
“I know all about not recognising the person you see in the mirror,” Cattleya said simply. “Because there’s no one in the mirror at all.” She took a deep breath. “Um… I can give you a reassuring hug if you promise you won’t catch on fire.”  
  
Jessica slumped down. “I can’t do that,” she said, with a sigh. “I’m… too emotionally fragile right now. If I start getting angry I’ll go and buff out. Or tearful. Tearful too. Demon hormones are even worse than human ones.”  
  
“Demon horn moans?” asked Henrietta, a slightly disgusted expression on her face. “I don’t think I want to know what those are. I’m sorry – I had no idea.”  
  
“No shit,” Jessica muttered. “It’s not like I go shouting it from the deepest dungeons. It’s one of the pluses to hanging around you lot. Everyone down below knows incubae and succubae have if problems like this if we have enough human in us. Fuck my mother and her shitty parenting and the fact she left me like this and then walked out.”  
  
Henrietta coughed, and dabbed at her eyes again before wringing out her handkerchief again. “So, returning to the previous topic…”  
  
“That was?” Jessica asked. “I was… um, sort of crying in my bedroom. Oh, and rampaging around as a giant male demon. There… um, is some fire damage. Fuck my temper.”  
  
“We were trying to find a way to rescue Louise!” Cattleya said brightly. “Before nightfall, that is. Once the sun goes down, I’ll be there in a snap!” To demonstrate that, she tried to snap her fingers. She failed, but it was a valiant effort.  
  
Jessica shrugged. “Isn’t that Gnarl’s job? Why don’t you ask him?”  
  
“I can’t find him,” Henrietta said darkly, steepling her fingers. “So. Jessica…”  
  
“No. Uh no. No. No!” Jessica crossed her arms over her broad, manly chest. “No! I’m not going out of the house looking like this! And… and you can’t make me!” She smouldered, both literally and allegorically.  
  
“Okay I think we understand your position it’s a very good position just don’t catch on fire please please please,” Cattleya said quickly, backing away to hide behind an armchair.  
  
Henrietta sighed. “Well. That’s what it comes down to, then,” she said, squaring her jaw.  
  
“I know,” Cattleya said miserably, to sympathetic noises from Jessica. “We… we just can’t help her. And I feel dreadful and it’s all the fault of this wretched curse-”  
  
“And my fucking stupid biology, too,” Jessica added.  
  
“… quite so.”  
  
They got glared at by the princess. “What? Heck no!” Henrietta said, pulling herself to her feet. The expression on her face resembled that of her great-grandfather when he cleansed the Black Monastery of Vrees of its infernal cultists, enacting holy and righteous justice on them. It also resembled the expression of her one of her great-aunts as she murdered the aforementioned great-grandfather. “I am not going to sit here like a useless trophy princess waiting for nightfall.”  
  
Imperiously, she pointed at Jessica.  
  
“You! Stop blubbering! Chin up! Bring me the armour we were trying out! Cattleya! Make the portal enchantment work and prepare me an honour guard! Or perhaps a dishonour guard! I care not! I’m going to the armoury! Louise Françoise must have some suitable wand or staff I can use!” Henrietta put her hands on her hips and glowered. “I am getting her back. There may be blood. It won’t be mine.”

* * *

Once Louise had got over the bit where they’d swung out of a garret window, clambered onto the roof, and then leapt between two buildings which had been built close together, it wasn’t so bad.  
  
Of course, the jump itself had been so utterly horrible that she took quite a while to get over it. Sitting on the roof under the clear blue sky, Louise hugged and knees and tried to stop hyperventilating as she sat on the warm slate of the roof.  
  
“Mraa,” said Pallas happily, licking her cheek.  
  
“Well, I’m glad you’re entertained by the events of today, my lady,” Louise said to the cat with only a modicum of bitterness.  
  
Pallas started purring next to her ear, doing a good impersonation of a saw.  
  
Going to university clearly made you mean, insane, evil and/or crazy, she thought to herself. Case one, Eleanore. Case two, the Madame de Montespan. Case three, Lady Magdalene. She’d need to watch out for that when she went. Because of course she was going. She was a proper young lady and it wasn’t like she was _stupid_ and… and well, given her magic was maybe a little bit made of raw Evil, she probably needed a field of study which didn’t involve the magical domination of Halkeginia.  
  
Louise carefully suppressed the panic attack she sometimes got when she remembered she might have failed out of the Academy of Magic due to being possibly a bit legally dead. There were extenuating circumstances. She had to work out what to do with her life apart from being an overlady. Because she wasn’t doing this long term. Oh, no. She… she was just getting it out of her system now.  
  
“Well, we’re now on the roof of the Bosque Library,” Magdalene said. From her expression, she was having the most fun she’d had in a long time. The look of almost childish glee was very nearly overcoming her normal aura of decadent sinister femininity. “So if we scale the chapel, we can get across the roof and then… what _is_ that smell?”  
  
“Shh,” Louise whispered, ears perking up as her breath slowed down. She felt better now that she had something to distract herself from jumping over buildings. She could hear voices from down below. And also smell minion. These two things might not have been related, come to think of it. She snuck up to the edge of the roof, and listened to the conversation of the soldiers in the courtyard.  
  
“Just remember, chaps,” a woman said, “your orders are quite clear. Eleanore de la Vallière stole the Malevolene Fragment, and it is your orders to sweep this location until it is found!”  
  
Louise narrowed her eyes. The civilian giving orders to the solider was familiar. It was… what was her name? The disgusting, lewd, vapid, terrible, horrible, unrighteous woman who had wanted to do horrible things with Louise when she’d temporarily taken her captive. She must have transferred from working for the Comte de Mott to working for the Madame de Montespan after Louise killed him.  
  
Well, there was no way Louise was letting her find out she was here. She might take it as encouragement.  
  
“Right you are, milady,” said the lieutenant leading the squad. “Uh… what’s a Malevolene Fragment?”  
  
The woman put her hands on her hips. “It’s a blue-grey crystal,” she said. “Honestly! Blue-grey crystal, sharp, radiates raw Evil…”  
  
“Blue-grey doesn’t sound very Evil,” one of the soldiers said sceptically. “That sounds like a Good crystal to me. Like, you’d think that an Evil crystal would be black.”  
  
“Or red!” another soldier chipped in.  
  
“Yeah. Or red. Or maybe black but when light shines on it there’s sort of an evil red glow from the inside what makes you think of the fires of the Abyss.”  
  
The woman gritted her teeth. “That’s not the Malevolene Fragment. That’s just hubnerite you’re describing. They have some of that in the geology department. No, go search out the Malevolene Fragment and return it safely. That’s the orders from the Regency Council.” And with that said, she walked off.  
  
There was a silence.  
  
“Pretty sure a black stone with red glints in it is made of Evil,” one of the soldiers said.  
  
“Yeah. Prob’ly should make sure that those geologist mages aren’t doing Evil things there. After all, you know what they say about people who dig too deep.”  
  
“… that they let out giant demons of smoke and flame?”  
  
“Exactly. What’re we gonna do, boss?”  
  
“We will follow our orders. And our orders are to search for the Malevolene Fragment, which is blue and grey,” the lieutenant said, after some thought. “Men! Move out! We can search the geology department for it, and at the same time arrest everyone who’s doing things with Evil black crystals which glow red. That’s just common sense.” Down below, the men in the brown buff jackets marched off, heading to the other side of the campus.  
  
The wind picked up, ruffling Louise’s hood. “They’re not too bright,” she said quietly. Oh! That had been the woman’s name! Rebecca de Ghent! She… wasn’t at all surprised she hadn’t been able to recall it. It probably didn’t matter anyway.  
  
“You can say that again,” Magdalene agreed. “Eleanore de la Vallière is an annoyingly self-righteous prig who likes to say that just because she’s Good doesn’t mean she has to be nice. I don’t doubt that she might have stolen a fragment of an Evil crystal, but this wouldn’t be the first time Evil artefacts have been taken from the university and wound up mysteriously destroyed. I’m sure it’s her fault.”  
  
Louise paled. Oh dear. Destroying a fragment of the tower heart would be bad. Very, very bad. And not the kind of bad that was good for her. The kind of bad which was bad for her. And Eleanore had been the one who had accidentally let out the Bloody Duke because she’d wanted to be a hero and that had led to Cattleya having her blood drained out and becoming an undead monstrosity – in the best possible way, of course.  
  
Um. And if Eleanore knew that the Overlady of the North was maybe looking for such things because of rumours or something. Um. Louise tapped her forefingers together. Oops. Oopsy daisy.  
  
Well. She’d just have to try _especially hard_ to steal the fragment of the tower heart, and make sure everyone knew she’d done it and cunningly pinned the blame on Eleanore de la Vallière. Everyone expected Evil to try to discredit Good. And the infernal press loved to crow about such victories and publicise them. But if you publicised a trick like that, surely Good would find out about it. And then they’d know that it wasn’t Eleanore who had stolen it, it was the evil and wicked Overlady of the North. Right?  
  
Louise smiled quietly to herself. Yes. Of course she was right.  
  
“Seriously, that smell is just dreadful,” Magdalene said out loud, breaking Louise’s reverie. “And you’re laughing to yourself. Can we hurry up?”  
  
“I’m not laughing to myself,” Louise said reflexively. “Well, only a little. I was laughing at how stupid the guards are.”  
  
“They are quite stupid.”  
  
“As for the smell… Igni, show yourself,” Louise said sternly, sitting back down on the summer-warmed slate.  
  
A red horned head poked out of the chimney pot. “It are amazing how you is knowing that I are here,” Igni said, climbing out. “I are thinking I are as sneaky as a green when I are hiding in there to get warm. But the fire no are hot enough!”  
  
“Good heavens,” Magdalene said, trying to simultaneously lean in closer while also backing away. “A purebred minion. I haven’t seen one of those in a decade.”  
  
Louise blinked. “I’m sorry?” she said. “Where? What?”  
  
“Oh, back when I was as school, during the holidays,” Magdalene said. A flight of ravens landed on the roof around her, cawing. “I was sixteen at the time. Me, Marizan, Eleanore and Jean-Jacques went to rescue Cardinal Richelieu’s nephew – quite the little disgusting lecherous and self-indulgent man – from an evil Gallian conspirator. He had a bunch of those little red-skinned monsters running around. I was young and naïve back then, so of course I drowned them.”  
  
Igni shook his head sadly. “Water are far too killy against reds,” he said plaintively. “It are very unfair.”  
  
“Igni, where have you been?” Louise asked. Flexing her shoulders, she idly stroked her gauntlet. It was warm. She could feel that the shard of the tower heart was close.  
  
“Well, overlady,” the red said, “I like to say that it not my fault that you not where I are when we run from angry guards. It just thing that happen. And I certainly not abandon you.”  
  
“Of course not,” Louise said irritably. “You don’t have the brains to be treacherous. Or cowardly. That would require more intellectual capacity than you possess.” Igni stared at her blankly, from her overuse of long words. Louise sighed. “Continue.”  
  
“Well,” Igni said, spreading his hands wide, “first I loot a ham ‘cause I are hungry, and then I climb a wall and then I hear marzipan talking to her prisoner what you are very interested in,” he said, tapping his squashed nose in what he probably thought was cunning. The sad thing is, it was – by minion standards at least. “I hear that she want the bit of the tower heart. And also that her house is full of lots of lootable stuff. Also, stuff that burns well. So I want to set it on fire and then loot it.”  
  
“Oh, no,” Magdalene said automatically. “Pillaging should be done before burning.”  
  
“Nah. Fire are stopping other minions from getting to the shinies first,” Igni disagreed. “And then I get up here and I feel a lot of Evil in the bog which I think are the tower heart ‘cause it feel like the tower heart and then I get bored and then I go look for the chimney where I can nap ‘cause I are cold and tired and then-”  
  
“Wait, wait,” Louise said, who felt he was sort of missing the important bit. “Where did you say you felt that evil presence?”  
  
“In the bog that are in the place where there are many sweaty men and lots of alchemy happening! I show you where I feel it,” Igni said, bouncing up and down with the enthusiasm of a minion helping their overlady.  
  
The path took them over several more roofs, and onto a sulphurous-smelling building. The structure was fire blackened and built rather more cheaply than the more glorious and traditional buildings on the campus. Strange-coloured smoke escaped from the chimneys.  
  
Magdalene frowned, running her hand through her glorious mass of dark hair. “This is the Internal Alchemy department’s building,” she said. “That’s where the shut-in sort of alchemist goes. Most of them are men, and they’re absolutely obsessed with finding immortality. Goodness knows what they’d use their immortality on, given most of them are disfigured from their experimentation and couldn’t talk to a normal person if they were paid to. We’re talking about the sort of people who cut off their own arms to replace them with golem arms.”  
  
Louise frowned. “But golems require a constant supply of earthstones to keep working. And they’re clumsy.”  
  
“I know! It’s a stupid wasteful use of magic!”  
  
“Ah. So we’re dealing with idiots,” Louise said.  
  
“Yes! We are! Idiots with no sense of personal hygiene! You know there’s a latrine up there which was set up to extract saltpetre, but which has been blocked since before I started as an undergraduate? They literally don’t seem to notice the smell!”  
  
Louise looked at Magdalene. Magdalene looked at Louise. Inevitability dawned.  
  
“Oh dear,” Louise sighed.  
  
“Quite.”  
  
And indeed, when they let themselves down into the building, Louise could feel the kitten-like warmth of the force of Evil coming from the latrine marked ‘DO NOT USE’. Pallas did not like this building and hid herself in Louise’s hood.  
  
“Don’t worry,” Louise told her. “We’ll be gone soon.”  
  
“Prrrth!” the cat protested, burrowing her head down Louise’s front to try to escape the smell.  
  
Louise had to agree. “What kind of mind would hide the fragment of a Tower Heart in a blocked off toilet?” Louise exclaimed, horrified.  
  
“A cruel vindictive, horrifically evil mind,” Magdalene said holding her nose. “That’s just… that’s just… oh Founder! I just inhaled! I can taste it! What kind of monster would hide it here?”

* * *

In her easy-to-escape cell, Eleanore de la Vallière got a sudden temptation to smirk and didn’t know why.

* * *

“No, it’s not that,” Louise said. “What kind of idiot would hide something from an overlord – or overlady – in a toilet?” She sighed. “Maggat?” she said, and then shook her head. “I mean, Igni.”  
  
“Yes, overlady?” the minion asked.  
  
“You don’t mind the smell, do you?”  
  
“What smell?” the red said.  
  
“Precisely. Igni, recover it from in there, or I’ll cook you alive with lightning if you fail.”  
  
The red saluted sloppily, which was about the best he could manage. The fact that he was holding a fireball when he saluted was fairly normal for a red. “Yes! For the overlady!”  
  
“Well, that’s easy,” Louise said smugly. “That’s why people usually hide things in… you know, vaults with giant metal doors and traps and…”  
  
She paused. Oh dear. Oh dear. If – as Montespan had alleged – Eleanore had stolen something which sounded somewhat like a tower heart fragment, she might have been the one who put it here. And speaking as the person who was the reason that Eleanore started booby-trapping her room to stop people getting in after a few incidents with paint and ‘borrowing’ her things, Louise was quite aware of her elder sister’s skill with snares. They usually _started_ with buckets of fast-drying cement above the door and moved up to magical traps of terrifying ingenuity. And hiding something in a toilet so the person who found it would be very smug about how they were too clever for the person who hid it was a very Eleanore thing to do. Just before something nasty went off. It was exactly what her sister would do. Or the Bloody Duke. Or… well, honestly, it was probably a de la Vallière trait in general.  
  
She looked at Magdalene. Magdalene looked at her with a horrified expression which suggested a very similar chain of thought had just passed through her mind.  
  
Neither of them wasted any breath saying things like ‘run for it’ or ‘oh no!’. They just ran for it. And that was just as well, because they managed to get behind a solid wall just before the fireball-holding Igni opened the door.

* * *

Neatly, Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, marquise of Montespan opened the door to her office and just as carefully closed it behind it. Her collection of pure white cats came to flock around them, and she gently petted each of them in turn. One seemed to be missing. She sighed. She hoped one of the curious little things hadn’t got lost. Then with extreme care she recovered the little blonde rag doll from her desk that resembled Eleanore de la Vallière, and placed it on the floor.  
  
Smiling, she crushed it under her heel.  
  
“I hate you,” she told the doll. “I hate you so very, very much. You smug, arrogant bitch. You’re going to pay. Oh yes. They’ll have you done as a witch and then you’ll burn. And I’ll laugh! Laugh! You and the rest of your wretched family! Why can’t anyone else see! Why can’t they see that your bad blood has won out! Everyone else thinks you’re just funny! They feel mean because they laugh at you being mean, but they still laugh! They always laugh!”  
  
The rather crushed rag doll didn’t say anything.  
  
One kitten pounced on the doll and savagely bit and clawed at it. Françoise laughed and laughed and laughed, high and shrill. Tears ran from her eyes. “Good girl, Nysa! Kill her! Kill her!”  
  
The cat grew bored with the game and wandered off. The Madame de Montespan seemed to collect herself, and coughed, blotting her eyes on a handkerchief. She raised her hands of her flaming cheeks. “Oh my,” she told the doll. “And here you are, getting me all worked up. You’ll pay for that. Oh yes. You’ll pay. I’ll make sure of it.”  
  
Then carefully she dusted down the doll, and put it back in its cupboard, locking the door behind it. With uttermost poise she sat down at her desk, and poured herself a light sherry. Swirling the dark red liquid around, she thought of her next move. She controlled most of the city, true, and she had already prepared this with individuals who were going to benefit from people who she arrested. The next few days would be critical. She had to keep things under control. Make sure there was a ‘smooth transition’. An ‘orderly handover’. As long as most of the academics saw no difference in their day to day life, they wouldn’t care.  
  
She paused, and tilted her head. An excellent idea. Pulling out a quill, she placed it on top of paper and tapped it with her wand. The quill stood on end.  
  
“A memo to myself,” she told it, each word being written down as she said it. “Consider permitting the proctors of the university to open the wine cellars for the next week, to celebrate… oh, find some festival to give thanks for. If those sots are too inebriated to protest, everything will go much more smoothly. End memo.”  
  
But maybe that might not be enough. Perhaps she needed a little more help. Help that she had already… purchased, yes. Purchased.  
  
She took a breath. And another one. Stepping through to a side room and shooing out the curious cats, she approached her little personal votive shrine. It was a small shrine. It resembled a Brimiric personal shrine in almost every way. Every way, in fact, but one.  
  
There were no holy symbols within. No markers which would indicate who it was devoted to. No icons of any god, benevolent or malign. It was an unused shrine, a shrine she never prayed to.  
  
Quite deliberately, the Madame de Montespan turned her back on the shrine and started reading a book on natural philosophy and the skeletal structures of dragonkind.  
  
After ten or so minutes of hushed reading, there came a voice. It was meticulous and precise, and echoed strangely in the small, comfortably furnished study. “ _Do you call upon my presence? Do you wish for me to answer your prayers?_ ”  
  
“Of course not,” the woman said quietly. “I invoke no divinity. I call on no spirits. There are no gods and I am not their prophet. Begone.”  
  
A faint chuckle echoed from the air, and all the hair on the back of her neck rose on end. She shuddered, unable to help herself, at the cool malevolence creeping off the empty shrine. “ _Excellent. You are doing well, little one. Hold up your end of our bargain, and I shall hold up mine. The de la Vallières shall be destroyed, just as you wished. They will come to you so that you may crush them. And should you find them too problematic for you, I have given you a gift that will give you the power you need. Do not be afraid to use it._ ”  
  
The presence departed, and Françoise Athénaïs shuddered faintly in revulsion, one hand going to the necklace she wore. It was a great sacrifice she was making in the name of Tristain, but a worthy one. The loathsome taint of this most wicked family would be eradicated and they would be brought down in the eyes of everyone.  
  
And Eleanore would get to look up at her through her cell bars just before they had her burned at the stake, and she’d know it was _all her fault_. Because it was. All her fault for everything. Apart from the bits which were the fault of her disgusting, deceitful father for trying to steal her Jean Jacques from her, but those bits were still Eleanore’s fault. Yes. Her fault for talking to Jean-Jaques at school and drawing his attention to the possibility of a marriage with the de la Vallière family.  
  
Of course, he was far too pure to be… be _tainted_ by their evil ways, but the very idea that there might have been one of his seed growing within one of them made her get rather annoyed and… and…  
  
Oh my. She was getting rather red in the face. She laughed to herself. How silly. Because none of them were going to marry her beloved ever and he loved only her! Only her! Only her! Of course!  
  
And then she heard the explosion.

* * *

“Ow,” Louise said. She thumped the side of her head, trying to clear the ringing in her ears. It didn’t work. All that happened was that now her head hurt as well as her ears ringing. She was apparently lying on the floor. Unsteadily, she picked herself up.  
  
“I beg your pardon,” Lady Magdalene said loudly. She was leaning against the wall, shaking her head from side to side.  
  
“I said ‘Ow’!”  
  
“What!”  
  
“Mraa!” said the disconcerted cat who had wormed down the front of Louise’s robe. Pallas leapt out, and lay down on the floor, paws over her ears and tail lashing unhappily.  
  
Louise realised that she had apparently developed partial immunity to deafness from explosions. It was probably a side effect of all the blorting which happened when she tried to make minions. Or maybe it was a pre-existing trait from… well, the way her magic tended to make things explode before she’d started using Evil magic. Holding into the wall, she poked her head around the corner.  
  
The wall was missing. And the floor. And the bits of the building she could see were on fire.  
  
“Oops,” Louise said.  
  
“What are the problem, overlady?” Igni said from directly behind her.  
  
Louise did not scream. She did not yelp. She just went very stiff and turned on the grinning, blackened red who was holding a fragment of blue-grey crystal. His hat was missing.  
  
“Igni,” Louise said flatly.  
  
“Yes, overlady?”  
  
“Why are you not blown apart into lots of itty bitty chunks?”  
  
Igni gave a minionly shrug. “It are only a big boom,” he said dismissively. “I are a red minion. We no is even single dying to fire. And I is guessing that my fireball are setting off the gas from the bog. It go boom and make all the spells explode at once.” He grinned widely. “I is wanting to do that again!” he said happily. “I is thinking this foul-air explosive are a great leap forwards for boominess! And I catch bit of tower heart with my hat! My hat explode but it worthy sacrifice for the overlady. Indeed, that are the job of a minion!” He tapped on or around his forelocks. “I think my skull are fractured,” he added, “but that’ll be fine when Scyl takes a look at it.”  
  
Louise felt faint. Igni had used the word ‘indeed’. And was generally being abnormally verbose. “… do you think being hit in the head with a bit of the tower heart made you smarter?” she asked weakly.  
  
Igni frowned. “I would say that it are possible,” he said. “I no are feeling smarter, but I are certainly feeling more cunning.”  
  
… yes. That was certainly a display of vocabulary of the kind unseen in minions who weren’t called Gnarl or Maxy. Or those black ones who were made with raw Evil and then blorted shortly afterwards.  
  
Huh.  
  
“Igni,” Louise ordered, taking the fragment of the tower heart from him. “Don’t blort.”  
  
“I are going to try my best,” Igni said, massaging his fractured skull. “This are hurting quite a bit.”  
  
“Does it feel like a blorting kind of hurt?”  
  
“I are not sure. I have never blorted before.”  
  
She supposed that would have to do. “Well, my lady,” she said to Magdalene. “It has been lovely meeting you. I do believe that I will be attending the next meeting of the book club. And with that said and done, I think you’ll need to chase me, probably firing spells at me.” She paused. “Please miss.”  
  
Magdalene narrowed her eyes. “I see,” she said. “Yes. Thank you for being so considerate of my position here.”  
  
Louise shook her hand. “I enjoyed today and would like to look towards considering you to be a friend. Therefore, feel free to tell other people that through vile trickery I took you captive and held a knife to your throat, with the help of my endless hordes of cunning green skinned minions.”  
  
“I may well take you up on that,” Magdalene agreed with a smile. She wiped soot from her sweaty face. “Well, I’ll give you a two minute head start, and then I’ll scream. The stairs down the end of the hall should lead you out, and then head east. You should be able to get out once you cross the canal bridge.” She paused. “And I realise now that we are in the alchemy building and it’s on fire. I think we all need to flee.” The sound of crackling below them emphasised her point.  
  
Louise let the gauntlet absorb the fragment of the tower heart. “Come on, Igni,” she said, determination in her voice. “Time to run.”

* * *

The cloudless afternoon sky was only slightly marred by the large pillar of black smoke from the burning Department of Internal Alchemy. Louise de la Vallière was studiously ignoring the fact that she had left parts of another city on fire.  
  
It wasn’t like it was a habit with her, anyway. She’d only burned _some_ of the town where she’d fought the Comte de Mott. And set off a large bomb in the palace to cover her tracks. And accidentally set a pirate fleet she’d been trying to capture on fire. Which hadn’t even been her! That had been her minions! That didn’t count!  
  
Anyway, she had more important things to think about, like the fact that she was running away from Amstreldamme and something had set the guards all aflutter. Possibly a case of arson. Possibly something else. No one could really say.  
  
Back pressed against a church wall, Louise waited for the guard patrol to rush by, feet clattering against the ancient paving stones of the city. She’d deliberately sought out a church. Like many old Brimiric churches, its graveyard was built outside the city wall for fear of ravenous Dead and necromancers, and that meant that there was a little gate in the walls for the convenience of the priests.  
  
She counted in her head waiting for them to go, and risked poking her head around. They had moved on. “Pallas,” she said quietly to the cat currently perched on her shoulder. “Scout ahead.”  
  
The cat stared at her in incomprehension.  
  
“Scout ahead. Come on.”  
  
“Mraaa?”  
  
“… oh yes. Cats aren’t helpful. Igni,” she said quietly, gesturing towards the small portcullis that had been her destination.  
  
Scampering up, the minion tested the door. “It are locked,” he reported.  
  
Louise had expected that, and so promptly burned through the lock with magical acid.  
  
“It no are locked anymore,” Igni continued insightfully.  
  
“Mraa,” contributed Pallas.  
  
The overlady exited the city, heading through the exterior graveyard. She made sure to keep low and behind the ornamental decorations and tomb stones so she wasn’t seen from the walls. The lines of aspens and willows broke up the serried ranks of stones shaped like a sword sunk into the ground, and occasional larger mausoleums provided a place for her to hide behind when she caught her breath.  
  
All in all, she felt she was doing this very professionally. As a result, Louise felt incredibly cheated and hard done by when she ran into an invisible barrier and fell over backwards.  
  
“Ow!”  
  
“Mraaaaaaaa!”  
  
Carefully, Louise picked herself to her feet. Reaching out, she felt that it was as smooth as glass. She couldn’t push through the invisible barrier. No, that wasn’t quite right. Pushing her left hand forwards, her gauntlet seemed to sink into the magic wall like she was pushing her hand into tar. It was slow, but it could move through.  
  
… the rest of her couldn’t, though, she thought as she hastily pulled it out. Louise didn’t need the mental images of what might happen to her arm if she pushed the gauntlet through and the barrier touched flesh.  
  
“Well, well, well – as the peasant who just couldn’t stay out of the water said,” said a crisp voice. “I seem to have caught an annoying little wasp.” Louise could recognise the Madame de Montespan’s voice. She couldn’t hear any soldiers with her, but she was an earth mage and that meant the might have golems. “No, please, keep on trying to smash through my barrier. I’m sure you’ll have more success than any of the other traitors who have tried to flee the city.”  
  
Louise said nothing, her shoulders shaking with rage. Quietly she whispered a few words of power to herself, the evil magic coalescing around her hand as lightning.  
  
“Nothing to say for yourself?” the other woman asked.  
  
The overlady whirled and let lightning fly. Thunder boomed. And the energy earthed itself harmlessly on the glowing shield around her foe.  
  
“You should have done your research, you vile villain,” Françoise Athenais said, her face emotionless from behind the haze of her layered protection. “Everyone knows I am rather good with my wards.”


	47. Most Ethical Academic 9-4

_“Too long have unrighteous ways dominated our holy Father Church! Priests and nuns dress improperly, and flaunt their flesh in tight garments and revealing fashions. No, all should be equal in the eyes of the Lord and the Founder, and so I have imposed standardised full-body dress regulations for all who have taken holy orders! Even I shall dress in this way, in loose robes. It is a mark of my humility that I dress like a common village priest. And those who say that I have been putting on weight recently are too concerned for my health. I overcame the recent curse that left me nauseous and weary each morning, and I am sure that this weight gain shall be gone by the end of the year. I intend to go on a private pilgrimage with my personal aide and bosom companion, Cardinal Benedict, to help me pray it away.”_  
  
–  Pope Gregory II, The Proclamation of Mandatory Decency

* * *

The echoes of the thunderclap reverberated through the graveyard.  
  
“So. The Overlady of the North,” said Francoise Athenais coldly. “You kidnapped Princess Henrietta. You plundered the treasury. You murdered the comte de Mott.”  
  
“You’re a self-centred dog – and a usurper too,” Louise countered. “I’m going to enjoy destroying you.”  
  
The two women eyed each other up. The overlady was wrapped in a slightly sooty black robe with her face concealed by the hood despite the heat. Two pinkish-yellow eyes burned in the shadows of her cowl. Her left hand was pointed at the other woman’s head, her armoured gauntlet bleeding malevolence into the air. A single ruby gleamed on it, like a droplet of blood.  
  
The Madame de Montespan was still wearing her academic’s mantle from earlier in the day, though she had lost or abandoned her cap. Her teal green hair hung was hastily tied back, and her green eyes glittered in the sunlight. All around her, her layered wards left a blue haze in the air. She had her wand drawn, and she kept it pointed at the overlady.  
  
The wind picked up. A garland of flowers was blown off a grave by the breeze, and rolled between them. Louise began to pace to the left, Francoise Athenais to the right. Each looked for a moment of weakness in the other to exploit.  
  
“You can’t break my wards,” the older woman said, voice low.  
  
“You’ll have to lower them if you want to cast,” Louise countered.  
  
“Time is on my side. My men will be here soon.”  
  
“Will they? You’d have to lower the spell keeping me from fleeing.” Louise paused. “And that assumes they’re not distracted by… all the fires. How did you get here this fast?”  
  
“You’re predictable.”  
  
“I tripped one of your perimeter defences, didn’t I?” Louise tilted her head. “The gate to the graveyard?”  
  
“It was an obvious way out.” They continued to circle, watching for a chance to strike. Tension built between them until the very air seemed to hum like a bowstring.  
  
“Mreeep?” asked a white cat quizzically, wandering into the space between them and looking from one woman to the other in bewilderment.  
  
“Pallas?”  
  
It was only after the slight echo failed to go on echoing that Louise realised that the Madame de Montespan had spoken at exactly the same moment as her. Not that they sounded anything alike, of course. Or looked alike. Not one bit!  
  
“So you kidnapped my cat,” Francoise Athenais said, her voice low and quiet.  
  
“Pallas is your cat? She just started following me around!” Louise glared at the cat. “Did you betray me to her?” she asked it, making sure to keep her hand pointed at Montespan.  
  
“Mraa.”  
  
“Was that a yes or a no?”  
  
“Mraaaa mraa,” Pallas clarified.  
  
“It would of course be entirely in accordance with your previous behaviour to do that,” the other woman said, as if she hadn’t heard a thing Louise said. “Yes. After all, you must have known how much I value my pets. Of course you’d try to steal one of them. They’re a pedigree breed. Your loathsome wickedness means that you desire to despoil and steal wherever you can.”  
  
“I didn’t steal your cat. She just decided to follow me around,” Louise repeated, clenching her teeth as the ruthless feline blackmail from earlier began to make a lot more sense. “You can have her back if you want.”  
  
“Aha! So you’ve cast some malevolent spell on her! To turn her into a weapon against me!” Montespan narrowed her eyes, sighting down her wand. “Or worse, you’ve enthralled her! Oh yes, we all know what witches do with cats they wish to make into a demonic familiar!”  
  
Louise turned red, her hand shaking with rage. “No! I did not… you…” She took a deep breath. “What are you, stupid? Or do you just not listen to a single thing I say – because you’re a stupid idiotic whelp!”  
  
“Your attempts to plead innocence and your base insults will have no sway! One such as you was never innocent! Cannot be innocent!” Francoise Athenais snapped. “So of course you’d make poor innocent Pallas nurse from-”  
  
Louise had heard quite enough, thank you very much, and so tried to set the other woman on fire. Pink fire surged forth in a roaring wave which broke against Montespan’s wards. The blue haze flickered and one layer of it cracked and wavered alarmingly, but held strong. The surroundings weren’t so lucky and the summer-dried grass and trees of the graveyard went up like oil-soaked tinder. Pallas, displaying the reflexes of… well, a cat, vanished with a yowl.  
  
But Louise hadn’t been casting to kill, and-  
  
Well, okay, she had been. But given it hadn’t worked she wasn’t going to just stand there and throw fire at the wards. It would just open her up to a counter. While Montespan was still blinded by the fire and smoke, Louise ducked back, getting behind a nice and solid mausoleum. She thought about what she knew about Montespan. Skilled earth mage, honourless dignity-lacking cur who profaned her body outside of marriage, apparently Eleanore had meant that she was really good at handling _real_ wards, not… never mind what Louise had thought she’d meant.  
  
What would an earth mage do in these circumstances? Louise tried to get her breathing under control and began to slowly mutter to herself, building up power in her gauntlet. She knew that Montespan wouldn’t be able to keep up that strength of warding if she went on the offensive. Even if she was fortifying her wards with artefacts and imbued objects, the limits to the will of a mage meant that she couldn’t keep her power in her defences and attack at the same time.  
  
Which would mean that Louise would need to coax her into attacking something – preferentially not her – and then jump out and shoot her with lightning, preferably in the back when she wasn’t looking, which was the de la Vallière way of doing things and had worked rather well for generations. Even her father apparently had a habit of stabbing demon lords and minotaurs and dragons in the back with ice blades when they were focussed on her mother. Her mother was admittedly very distracting.  
  
And Louise had something which was nearly as distracting. Or at least annoying.  
  
“Igni!” she snapped. “Go throw fireballs at her from the fire and draw her attention!”  
  
Igni poked his head out from behind a burning tree. “Can do, overlady!” he said cheerfully, and vanished into the smoke.  
  
Something rumbled behind Louise. That sounded like a golem-like rumble. Yes, that was certainly a bunch of granite golems made from tombstones, Louise thought when she peeked. Oh, wonderful. They were in fact golems who looked just like Viscount Wardes. The stone was almost exactly the same colour as his hair.  
  
They were advancing on her hiding place.  
  
Well. She couldn’t say that she _objected_ to destroying golems which looked like this.

* * *

Hoofs beat on the road. There was something peculiar about their pattern. Nevertheless, the distance melted away like a candle under a blowtorch. Onlookers gawped to see this wild ride.  
  
No doubt the attention drawn was because of the speed. Nothing else. The fact that it was led by a fair maiden who was riding a unicorn was an irrelevancy. The fact that the aforementioned unicorn had glowing red eyes, was frothing madly at the mouth, and had apparently been stitched together from several other horses to replace missing limbs was a negligible detail. And of course nothing about the rider could have been drawing attention.  
  
Nothing at all.  
  
Oh, and of course it was scarcely even worth mentioning that the rider was being followed by a pack of wolves. Who were being ridden by foul-smelling goblins.  
  
“Woooooolfies!” cackled Fettid madly. “Woflies are the worstest worst!”  
  
“I are composing a new poem ‘bout this. It are called ‘The Charge of the Dark Brigade’,” Maxy declared. “Ahem. ‘A kilometre. A kilometre. A kil-urk’.” Maxy slumped over in his saddle, a large knife sticking out of his back.  
  
“Bad job, Fettid,” Maggat said approvingly.  
  
“Oh, sirs,” Fettid said, fanning herself with her hand, “this are praise what do make a jen-tell maven’s heart go boom boom boom what like hearts do normally but quicker.”  
  
“Should I brings him back from the dead place?” Scyl asked, casually plaiting dead spiders into the mane of his slathering red-eyed murder-wolf.  
  
Maggat considered it. “Later,” he said. “The henchess are leaving us behind and we no is needing distractions like poetry.” He spurred his wolf onwards. “Come on, you scum!” he roared to the others. “If the henchess leave us behind, I’ll kill you all!”  
  
A minionish warcry rose up over the fens around Amstreldamme.  
  
“Today are a good day to die then come back then kill them all and loot them!”

* * *

The hissing acid burned into the perfect face of the Wardes-like golem, leaving it to stumble around blindly. Swinging its sword around, it managed to dismember a pillar, a bush, and one of its own compatriots. It comprehensively failed to dismember or even locate the overlady, however, who blew it apart with a lightning bolt as it tripped over the severed arm of one of its companions.  
  
Louise paused for breath, gasping for air. The smoke made her cough and splutter, and her lungs burned. She pulled out a handkerchief – black silk lovingly embroidered with demonic sigils by Jessica– and tied it over her mouth. It helped a little bit, but not enough. Fire crackled and burned all around her. She could see the boundaries of the outer wards that surrounding this place outlined by the grey-black smoke pressed up against the invisible wall like water in a glass bowl.  
  
Gosh. This really _was_ cathartic. And it was her birthday today! She’d almost forgotten. Demolishing golems that looked like Viscount Wardes was almost relaxing, apart from the part where they were trying to kill her.  
  
“Get back here, you wretched goblin,” she heard Montespan hiss from the other side of the mausoleum. “Stop hiding in the fire. And stop throwing fireballs at me. It’s not doing anything, but it’s getting on my nerves.”  
  
Nerves thrumming, she crept closer and closer, keeping something solid between her and where she thought Montespan was. She couldn’t have been this quiet in her armour, but that just reminded her that in this robe she was as vulnerable as a snail without its shell. Though considerably faster and less mucus-y.  
  
Louise waited. Yes! There it was! She was chanting! From behind her cover, Louise stepped into sight and unleashed a storm of lightning bolts. The outer ward shattered entirely and the inner one flickered before Montespan threw herself to the ground. She snapped out a few words and the glow shifted in colour and grew brighter. This time when the next lightning bolt hit her there was only the barest flicker of her defences.  
  
And something clicked in Louise’s head. Whenever she threw magic at her, her wards wavered – even when the madame should have been protecting against her lightning wind-magic. Only Louise wasn’t using wind magic, was she? She was using Evil magic pretending to be wind. And she had been able to push her gauntlet through the big barrier trapping her in this place.  
  
So, the overlady thought, barely scheming at all, logically if a little bit of Evil was damaging her wards then a _lot_ should break them totally.  
  
Now, how to do this?  
  
But somehow she already knew. It was like there was something in her mind which had just been waiting for her to have the right thoughts to know how to do it. Her gauntlet whispered to her, saying words which were right on the edge of comprehension. She could almost understand them. Almost. There was something missing. They were somehow incomplete. But even the limited amount she could glean was enough for her purposes.  
  
Louise pointed her left hand at Montespan, raw Evil writhing around the steel. She spoke a single word. And all the magic in the area shattered. The other woman’s wards – both personal and otherwise – were extinguished like a candleflame in a hurricane. The magic reinforcing the walls of the city was snuffed out, and spiderweb cracks raced along its surface. Even the magelights on the watchtowers flared and then burned themselves out.  
  
Um. The overlady’s eyes widened. That hadn’t been quite what she’d expected, but she wasn’t complaining.  
  
Francoise Athenais collapsed to her knees, eyes wide in vacant shock. She dropped her wand, hand shaking as if she was afflicted by palsy. “Wh-what did you do?” she whispered, barely audible over the sounds of the burning graveyard and the breaking stone.  
  
“I see you failed to comprehend my true power,” Louise said smugly. If she was to be quite honest, she had no idea what she’d just done, but she wasn’t about to let this woman know that. “It was always part of my plan to let you think you were winning – just as it was part of my plan to fool you into arresting Eleanore de la Vallière on false pretences,” she added, improvising wildly. “I was there to make sure the plan I led you into went off without a hitch.”  
  
“Wh-what?” Francoise Athenais stammered.  
  
“Every step you’ve made has been part of my great plan – and Francoise Athenais, may I say you’ve played your part perfectly.” Louise smirked at her, knowing that she could see it. “What a perfect little pawn you’ve been. Running around following the false trails and implications I set up, moving the guards away so I could steal the Malevolene Fragment for myself.” She thought a laugh would improve matters, and so she laughed at the Madame de Montespan. After all, it was pretty funny. She was falling for it!  
  
“B-but… that’s…” Francoise Athenais looked around wildly. She was crying. She was actually crying! Louise’s smirk grew wider. This was perfect!  
  
“But you’ve played your part. So I’m going to have to dispose of you. Don’t worry,” Louise said, eyes narrowed, “I’ll tell that rotten stinking dog Wardes that you died like a… a cur. And then I’ll kill him too.”  
  
The Madame de Montespan turned snow white, her pupils shrinking to tiny pupils. “N-no,” she breathed. The look she shot at the black-robed overlady was pure hatred. “You… you c-can’t… he…”  
  
“Just watch me,” Louise said. “Maybe I’ll trap his soul so I can play with it at my leisure.”  
  
Louise felt that maybe she was going a bit far. Clearly when she let her mouth do the talking, she… um, well, had de la Vallière ideas. But on the other hand, it was an unsettled question in theology as to whether it was acceptable to steal the souls of really, really bad people and torture them. Yes, some people said it was completely unacceptable, but on the other hand there was a major school of thought which held that the emulation of the Lord was the highest form of virtue, and hence if the Lord saw fit to condemn wrongdoers to eternal torture, then it must be acceptable for men too.  
  
Francoise Athenais let out a wordless shriek of apprehension and horror. “No!” she moaned. “No no no. He’s mine! You… you can’t have him! I’ll st-stop you!”  
  
Something deep inside Louise quite insistently suggested she should just kill her and just get it over with because nothing like this could ever end well. It didn’t sound like her de la Vallière blood, though, which was generally quite fine with gloating. It certainly sounded like a quite good idea, though. Maybe it was time to stop playing and…  
  
Montespan managed to get one hand to the necklace she wore. “Founder forgive me,” she whispered. “Jean-Jacques, forgive me.”  
  
Then she clutched the necklace tight and whispered a forbidden word, then tore it off.  
  
A wave of magic blasted Louise off her feet. The shockwave sent tombstones tumbling. The walls of Amstreldamme, already weakened by Louise’s magic, crackled and crumbled. A thick mist swept in from nowhere, grey and cold and bitter, and the sunny sky suddenly became overcast with bruise-coloured clouds.  
  
“Lou!” It was someone incredibly handsome and manly speaking to her through the gauntlet, which probably meant it was Jessica. Pleasant butterflies churned in Louise’s stomach, fighting with the much less pleasant butterflies of terror – which were probably some kind of nasty moth anyway. Or maybe wasps. “Bad news! We can get-”  
  
“I know!” Louise shrieked. “I can tell she’s bad news! Now go away! I don’t need warm romantic fuzziness from you!” She rolled out of the way, glad for once that she wasn’t wearing her armour and managed to get behind a still-standing tombstone. She had the gut feeling that something solid and stone between her and Montespan was something she’d need in the near future. She was probably blowing herself up to try to kill Louise or something.  
  
No such luck.  
  
Francoise Athenais hung motionless in a column of darkness which reached up to the charcoal-grey clouds. Blindingly bright lightning arced within the cloud of artificial night. Something was happening in there. Darkness was swirling into her, and her skin was growing paler. Every vein was a line of pitch under chalk-pale skin.  
  
Louise had no idea what was going on, but was pretty sure it couldn’t be good for her. “Okay, gauntlet,” she whispered to her left hand. “Let’s try doing the whole ‘make all the magic going away’ thing again!” She gritted her teeth and tried to draw on the Evil power once more.  
  
But she couldn’t feel the power there. She felt drained and tired. Was this how most other mages felt when they were low on willpower? She never normally felt like that. “Fireball!” she tried. A ball of pink smoke rushed forth, but it was smaller than usual and lopsided. It hit the column of blackness and was snuffed out. Louise silently cursed wards in her head.  
  
Fine. So she had thrown all her will into that counter-magic spell. And now Montespan was using some totally blatantly evil power up. Even as she watched, four wings spread out behind the Madame de Montespan, as black as the night’s sky and speckled with stars. The world itself greyed and died around her, losing something vital. Her eyes burned blue with icy certainty and dark veins criss-crossed her skin. Her hair moved like it was caught in an unseen hurricane.  
  
On the plus side, she had broken the wards around this place. So now was the time for her to expediently tactically withdraw as fast as possible.  
  
“Slow her down!” Louise shouted at Igni, and then legged it.  
  
“ _Minions…_ ” hissed the grotesquely transformed Francoise Athenais. “ _It’s been proven that they’re just trained goblins, not beings in their own right. And Eleanore de la Vallière was wrong when she said that goblins were a degenerated form of minions. I don’t believe in minions._ ”  
  
Igni screamed. Louise turned sheet white. She could see through the red. He was fading, like an illusion whose caster had ceased to empower the spell. Desperately, he threw fireball after fireball at the monstrous winged woman, but the balls of fire were mere images, meaning nothing and doing nothing.  
  
He grew fainter and fainter, his screaming fading along with the rest of him, and then he was gone.  
  
Louise dropped down behind a gravestone, shaking. One of the minions she actually knew the name of was dead. And not in the sense they usually died. Actually dead. Through… through some kind of horrible evil trick thing and… and Montespan had turned into a demon or an angel or something or… or…  
  
She stuffed her ungauntleted hand into her mouth and tried not to make a sound, as a sixth sense told her that the monster was looking her way. Louise didn’t even need her de la Vallière blood to tell her to hide and that it would be really quite stupid to try to fight someone who could apparently disbelieve you to death. Though it was telling her that anyway. Extensively and at length.  
  
“ _Is this all part of your plan, overlady?_ ” the monster asked mockingly. “ _Am I playing right into what you expected? Unlike you, I am pure._ ”  
  
Louise severely doubted that. For one, Montespan had just turned into what was probably some kind of dark angel of an Evil god. For two, she was also a cheap fiancé-stealing hussy who did horribly improper things before she was even married. For three she was also a lying treacherous witch who was literally a traitor. And for four, she had just turned into an Evil monster. Louise understood that she had raised that point twice, but it was a really really important point. One possibly even worth raising a third time.  
  
Keeping low, Louise lurked in gloom cast by the suddenly overcast sky. She screwed her eyes shut, trying to minimise their glow, and tried to call on all the will she could manage. There was just a dribble. She felt tired and drained enough that she could barely manage a fireball. A bell chimed and the earth shook once, then again.  
  
“ _Where are you, overlady? Come out, come out, wherever you are,_ ” Montespan called out. With a flapping of wings she swooped low overhead, trailing shadow in her wake. Louise kept low and prayed to the Founder that she wouldn’t be seen. The thick smoke from the fires were her friend here, and she was just glad she’d tied the handkerchief over her mouth. Despite that, the urge to cough was growing. She crept through the smoke and flames, even as overhead Francoise Athenais raised a hand and a column of black light exploded out of the ground accompanied by the chiming of a bell. Earth and mud and bits of skeleton rained down from the blast.  
  
Teeth clenched together, Louise tried not to scream. She just had to wait for the monster to realise that Louise wasn’t stupid and that something like her would have problems going into holy ground. Which would mean that the sensible way to go would be to straight back through the walls, into the church and to seek sanctuary there. Which meant she could catch Louise there at the little door in the walls.  
  
Once she did that, Louise could run in precisely the opposite direction, discard the robe and hide the gauntlet, and become just a young noblewoman running from the terrible fight occurring near the graveyard. The risk of being identified or losing the gauntlet was less, all things considered, than the risk of being torn limb from limb by a dark angel thing.  
  
She edged her way around a crypt, making sure to keep the low marble structure between her and the twisted woman on the other side. Yes. Keep on that way, she thought as she watched Montespan turn back towards the city walls. Just a little further…  
  
When the time was right, she made a run for it. Heart beating in her chest like a hammer, legs and arms pumping, she fled. The noise of the fires should cover her footsteps and the winged woman was some distance away anyway. She hurdled a row of low graves, not even sparing any thought for the tombs she was jumping over, and sprinted down a row of burning yew trees. Their smoke was perfumed and made her gag, but she forced herself to run. The low wall surrounding the burial grounds was getting nearer and-  
  
-and the Madame de Montespan dropped out of the sky, black wings wide. Black veins crawled across her too-pale skin. There was a look of dreadful terrible glee in her dark eyes. She held a long spear made out of the night’s sky and wore armour that seemed to be made out of meat. What could be seen of her mundane clothing was very burned indeed.  
  
“ _I knew you’d go this way,_ ” Montespan gloated. “ _The only sensible way to go would be flee to the church, which meant that logically you’d go exactly the opposite way hoping to outsmart me._ ”  
  
Curses, Louise thought. Along with a long chain of rather ruder words.  
  
Montespan took a step forwards. “ _What? No clever phrase? No cunning plan. I outsmarted you, you pathetic weak little mortal who drapes herself in borrowed power. What are you going to do now?_ ” She smiled too widely. “ _I don’t believe you have the strength left to cast a single spell,_ ” she said cruelly.  
  
Louise staggered as a sudden headache split her skull. It felt like something was… was sipping at her head! Like it was a teacup.  
  
The ground shook.  
  
And then a giant bone hand tore out of the earth and grabbed the Madame de Montespan, pulling her down underground.  
  
Louise stared at her left hand and the gauntlet. “Did you do that?” she asked it suspiciously. All around her across the burning graveyard the ground was rumbling. Skeletal and rotting hands thrust up from the broken earth. “What did you do?” she screamed at her hand.  
  
“Overlady!” shouted Maggat, riding up on a wolf with glowing red eyes. “We is here!”  
  
“Maggat!” she called out. Yes! There were at least twenty minions riding Cattleya’s wolves, and they were all old elite minions festooned in loot. She might even get out of here.  
  
“Where are Igni?”  
  
“She made him vanish,” Louise blurted out, shivering. “He’s dead! We need to go! And…” She trailed away.  
  
A figure approached, riding a pale equine.  
  
They were a necromancer. Yes. They were quite clearly a necromancer. It wasn’t the skull faced helmet with the enlarged fanged maw which gave the impression. It wasn’t the robe the colour of dried blood. It wasn’t the armoured corset under the robe made to resemble a rib-cage, complete with very supportive skeletal hands. It wasn’t the fact that the living dead were obeying her every command.  
  
It was all of those things combined, especially the last bit.  
  
And they were riding a unicorn. A rather corpse-y but not quite dead unicorn. A very familiar unicorn. It glared at Louise.  
  
Louise froze, caught between the urge to hide behind a tombstone and to just run away from Montespan. The other woman almost certainly wasn’t dead.  
  
“Minions!” she ordered. “Kill the necromancer!”  
  
Maxy tilted his head. “Kill the henchess?” he asked, and shrugged. “Well, if it are your orders-”  
  
“Stop!” Louise blurted out, to disappointment from the minions. “Henrietta?”  
  
“Who’s that, my overlady?” Henrietta’s familiar voice came out from beneath the helmet. “I am just your Voice.”  
  
Louise sprinted over, dodging the attempts of the mad possibly undead unicorn to gore her. “We need to go,” she shouted, pulling herself up into the saddle behind Henrietta. A small white shape shot out of the undergrowth, and sprung onto Louise’s cloak with a desperate and panicked “Mraaaa!”  
  
“Why? Now we’re here…”  
  
“That won’t stop her!” Louise squeaked urgently.  
  
“Really? Because the book said that-”  
  
“Drat the book!” Louise shouted. “She’s… she’s some kind of dark angel _thing_. I don’t think she needs to breathe! And she’ll disbelieve the hands away if we let her!” She slapped the unicorn on the behind and it started. “Go! Go!”  
  
A rumbling of earth from where Françoise Athenais had been dragged down made her point even more emphatically. Black light erupted from the ground and a single giant finger came rocketing out of the ground, crashing down and crushing a tombstone.  
  
Henrietta swallowed loudly. “I believe retreat may be the better course of-”  
  
“Run away!” Louise shouted.  
  
The next few minutes were a mad flight across the countryside, with Louise clinging on for dear life. Behind her, the pillars of smoke rose higher and higher under the localised and far too circular cover of the clouded sky. And then the clouds suddenly dispersed.  
  
A bit of Louise felt that was probably good news, and maybe they should go back to confirm that Montespan was dead. The rest of her decided that was stupid and ordered that they keep on running away.

* * *

The graveyard was a ruin. Overturned bones and half-exposed caskets were scattered everywhere. The ornamentation was largely on fire, and the bits which were not on fire were still smouldering. The unquiet dead still shambled around, torn from their rest by the dark magics of Princess Henrietta. Only a few tombstones were still standing, although a few of the lurking corpses had taken it upon themselves to right them.  
  
A hand thrust itself out from the broken earth. The Madame de Montespan clawed her way out of the filled in grave. She was utterly filthy and her dress was torn into tatters, especially prominently with two long slashes down the back. Her left hand twitched repeatedly, as if she had palsy. She staggered to her feet, leaning on the grave, and rubbed her bloodshot but entirely human eyes.  
  
Then she cursed under her breath because doing that just ground more mud into her eyes. This really, really hurt. Stupid useless pain.  
  
“Milady! Milady!” called out a guard. “Thank the Founder you’re alive! Was it…”  
  
“It was the Overlady of the North,” Francois Athenais said, gritting her teeth because there was grit in her teeth. She staggered, and almost fell. “I… I was hit in the head. I don’t… it’s all fuzzy. Help me get back to my townhouse,” she ordered.  
  
“Will you need a healer, milady?”  
  
“I… yes, I have one on my staff,” she said, frowning as she concentrated. “My magic saved me from being crushed. I’ll just need some rest to recover from my aches and pains.” She glared at him. “And give me your jacket,” she added. “It’s not decent to walk around looking like this.”  
  
Limping and battered, bleeding from multiple shallow cuts and with bruises all over her body, the Madame de Montespan was helped back to her home where her servants immediately saw to her. She hissed in pain as her personal healer splashed various stinging cleansing potions over her injuries to prevent the taint from the graveyard earth from sickening her, even as other servants prepared a bath for her. Then she tolerated, barely, the ache of the water mage sealing her disinfected wounds.  
  
“No other injuries? Any headaches or the like?” her healer asked.  
  
Francoise Athenais shook her head. “Just the scratches and the bruises and the normal exhaustion from using too much magic,” she said darkly. “I nearly got that vile witch, too.”  
  
“Well, I’ll be keeping an eye on you, my lady,” the other woman said. “It’s a miracle you’re as unhurt as you are – but then again, you handle wards very well indeed.”  
  
Montespan nodded. “Indeed. No miracle, just skill,” she said. “Now,” she pulled a face, “a bath to get all this mud out my hair.”  
  
Carefully she closed the door behind her, making sure the room was empty, and shed her filthy clothes. With a sigh of relief, she sunk into the steaming water.  
  
And her eyes bled to the blackness of the outer darkness, tiny flecks of light whirling in the nothingness.  
  
“My lord,” she addressed the thin air. “The mortals suspect nothing. This host is… quite adequate. And with such a position of power in the university, your will shall be done.”  
  
“ _Most malevolent work, Baelogji,_ ” the voice whispered, the air buzzing. “ _You have always been the foremost of my servants. You followed me down from Heaven, and this time you have outdone yourself. Evil prevails._ ”  
  
“I will feed further on her soul and consume her memories, the better to keep up the pretence,” the thing wearing Montespan’s body said. “Your works shall be taught in the lessons of men.”  
  
“ _Just as I planned. Do not damage her soul too much, though. It shall be useful when it is reforged into a weapon. Perhaps I shall pass it to you to wield. Or perhaps it shall become armour – after all, she was an earth mage and an expert with wards._ ”  
  
“Yes, oh Non-Existent One. Most generous of you.” The dark angel smiled. “Ave Athe!”  
  
“ _Ave me indeed. Maintain control of this body and the university. Do not let this mortal world influence you unduly, and you shall be richly rewarded indeed._ ” And the presence departed.  
  
The woman’s eyes bled back to their usual teal-green, and humming to herself, she began to gingerly scrub at herself with a sponge, wincing every time this useless mortal flesh forced her to feel pain.

* * *

The portal was just ahead. Away from the smoke and fire and demonic members of the Regency Council, it was a lovely summer evening. Louise slipped from the back of the unicorn gratefully and staggered on suddenly jelly-like knees. She was covered in soot and dirt and… and… she just wanted a bath!  
  
“Gnarl,” she said into her gauntlet. “Open the portal right this instant.”  
  
“It’s me,” Cattleya responded. “Just a moment! It’s a bit… hard, you know!”  
  
“… where’s Gnarl?” Louise said, one eye twitching. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her sister with the… okay, it was that. She didn’t entirely trust Catt to not get her stuck in the Abyss.  
  
“We’re… not entirely sure,” Cattelya said. “Just a tick! Really!”  
  
Behind her, Henrietta struggled to stop the unicorn from trying to gore Louise, and in the end resorted to punching it in the head. It staggered, dazed, and stopped misbehaving.  
  
“Well, I think that went quite well, Louise Françoise,” Henrietta said in a delighted voice.  
  
Louise opened her mouth. Louise closed her mouth. “How?” she asked. She really wanted a drink. Her mouth felt as dry as a chimney, and about as smoky. “How could that possibly have gone well?”  
  
“You’re not dead.”  
  
That was a good point. Louise did not let it dissuade her. “Henrietta,” she said, face like thunder. She crossed her arms and tried for her best glare. “Why are you casting black magics and despoiling the peace of the dead?”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“Since when were you a necromancer?” Louise snapped.  
  
“Mrraa!” Pallas said disapprovingly, backing up Louise.  
  
“Oh! That!”  
  
“Yes. That.”  
  
“I taught myself from your library,” Henrietta said, sliding off the stunned unicorn. She took her skull-faced helmet off and smiled widely. Her hair was fetchingly dishabille after being mussed by the helmet. “It’s really quite easy. It’s basically just water magic, you know. Well, the schools I studied. And I am a triangle-class water mage.”  
  
Louise cursed to herself. She knew she shouldn’t have bought those books on necromancy – but they’d been so academically interesting! And she needed to know how to counter necromancy. And – her shoulders slumped – oh no, no, no, now her eldest friend was a wielder of the dark arts. “This is all Gnarl’s fault,” she growled.  
  
“No, actually, it isn’t,” Henrietta contradicted her, squaring her jaw. “I did this all myself. Because, Louise Françoise, I am going to _help_ you slaughter the traitors who locked me in a tower for _nine months_ and then we can go lay waste to Albion for the _affront_ of them murdering my true love.” She took a breath. “It’s the least I can do to help you when you’ve done so much for me.”  
  
“You pulled the Madame de Montespan underground with a giant hand made of bone,” Louise wailed.  
  
“She _was_ going to kill you,” Henrietta pointed out.  
  
“I don’t even know where the giant hand came from,” Louise babbled, tears running down her sooty face. She realised she was getting incoherent and shaking like a leaf, but now the adrenaline crash was bearing down on her and she couldn’t stop it. “It doesn’t make any sense!”  
  
“I sort of woke everything in the graveyard,” Henrietta admitted. “I don’t know where the giant bone hand came from either. Maybe a dead giant was buried there.”  
  
“Why would there be a dead giant in a Brimiric graveyard?”  
  
“Maybe it saw the wisdom of the Founder and converted?”  
  
Louise felt that was very implausible, but wasn’t prepared to argue the point. Not when there were other more important things to try and fail to come to terms with. “And wh-what on earth are you wearing?” she said, eyes blurring.  
  
“Something I had Jessica make me. It’s very classical,” Henrietta said, with a twirl. “The deep red and the steel matches your own armour! But with a necromantic twist!”  
  
Louise sagged down against the stone of the portal, glaring at Henrietta. “The skeletal h-hands? _Really?_ On your… your…” Louise blushed. “Your chest.”  
  
Henrietta looked down at her front. “What about them?” she asked.  
  
This earned her a flat glare. “They are… they are… are they hands from a _male_ skeleton?”  
  
“You know, I didn’t think to ask. It doesn’t matter, anyway – they’ve been dead for a long time,” Henrietta explained. “It’s not like they’re reanimated or something – Jessica varnished them so they can’t move at all. You can try wiggling them if you want.”  
  
The overlady’s blush deepened. “I… I believe you,” she said quickly.  
  
“Apparently the Abyssal masses expect it! Wasn’t Jessica clever? And they’re actually very supportive,” Henrietta added. “Honestly, I must say that this entire ‘corset that resembles a ribcage’ get-up is far better than anything the court tailors ever made me. I wonder if I can find a way to keep on wearing it once this is all over.”  
  
Louise opened her mouth. Louise closed her mouth. “… are you seriously contemplating wearing a corset – at court, no less – which looks like a ribcage which… which uses hands to support your ch-chest?” she choked out.  
  
“Well, not _seriously_ ,” Henrietta said. She sighed. “But I’m sure my sweet prince would have liked it…”  
  
There wasn’t much Louise could say to that. She snivelled, tears running down her face. She was a mess. An emotional mess. The stress of almost dying was hitting her all at once and… and that dratted corset was making things even worse. It was certainly making her feel very uncomfortable. She entirely supported Henrietta taking it off. Unfortunately, part of her treacherously wanted to be the one who removed it, preferably after a candlelit dinner and some hand-holding, and would like to see her wearing it more often in future. Cursed wretched de la Vallière instincts resulting in amorous inclinations towards pretty female necromancers!  
  
She felt two warm-yet-skull-covered arms surround her. Gratefully she sunk into Henrietta’s hug, and let the warm sun beat down on her.  
  
“There, there,” Henrietta whispered. “You’re alive, yes? And you’re not hurt in any major way.”  
  
“… gonna be covered in bruises tomorrow,” Louise muttered into her friend. She shifted her head so the skeletal hands weren’t poking her in the eye.  
  
“And I’ll take a look at them,” Henrietta assured her. “It’s okay to cry. This was probably the worst birthday ever.”  
  
“… missed my birthday last year.” Louise thought. “Still worse.”  
  
“There, there,” Henrietta said, lifting up Louise to support her over one shoulder. She blotted her eyes on her robe. “Things are going to be okay. And you got back a fragment of the tower heart, right?”  
  
Louise sniffed. “Yes,” she managed.  
  
“So that’s something.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Come on. The portal’s opening. Let’s go home.”

* * *

Things were a bit of a mess. The party decorations were rather singed and the furniture was scattered. Louise felt a bit more solid after Henrietta hugs and a water-magic assisted cleaning of her face. Nevertheless, she simply wasn’t in the mood to deal with anything big.  
  
As a result, when she met the welcoming committee of Jessica and Cattleya, she was rather irked to find there was one question she had to ask.  
  
Louise shot a flat and very weary glance at Jessica. “Jessica, is there a reason you’re currently a man?” she asked.  
  
Jessica squirmed. “Demonic things,” she said awkwardly.  
  
The overlady considered the matter. “Very well,” she said. “Keep on with whatever you were doing.”  
  
“Uh. Don’t you have the urge to… um.” Jessica swallowed. “Try to tear off all my clothes or something? That’s what usually happens.”  
  
Louise frowned. No, she didn’t feel the urge. “I have a headache and I need to wash my hair,” she said bluntly. “I’ve just had the worst birthday ever. I really am not in the mood for that kind of nonsense.”  
  
“Awesome,” Jessica said, looking slightly less morose. “I wasn’t really looking forwards to that bit. And… uh, well, the male stripper we got you went home and most of the party decorations got set on fire and… uh. Well, we saved some of the cake!”  
  
“I had to beat the minions off with a zweihander!” Cattleya said brightly.  
  
“… yeah, that’s why we couldn’t save most of it, because they bled on it and no one wants minion blood on their cake,” Jessica admitted.  
  
“I’ll make you some tea!” Cattleya said brightly. “Everyone will feel better with some tea in the, right? It’ll be jolly nice all around!”  
  
“I…” Louise began.  
  
“I could certainly do with some tea,” Princess Henrietta said wistfully. “I grew rather fond of it with my sweet prince. As an Albionese, he drank vast amounts of it. I… every time I drink it, I think of him.”  
  
“… very well,” Louise sighed. “And I need cake.”  
  
“Don’t you want to wait for your presents?” Cattleya asked, sounding shocked.  
  
“Tomorrow. Really. I have had a very bad day. But if you want to do something nice for me, you could make sure my bath is run – and hot.  
  
This was actually pretty good cake, Louise admitted to herself as she sat on her throne with a plate, a fork and a cup of tea that Cattleya had made for her. She hadn’t had the heart to tell Catt that she didn’t want tea. So she was going to eat this cake while they prepared her bath and then she was going to sink in and try to forget everything that had happened today. She needed the sugar anyway.  
  
But she couldn’t forget what had happened today. On the plus side, she’d got another bit of the tower heart, and that meant she could now maintain more connections to relay towers. On the minus side – Founder, where to start? The fact that her sister was in jail? That the Madame de Montespan was apparently some kind of demonic-y dark angel-y whatever-y thing? That Princess Henrietta was now practicing necromancy and seemed to be frighteningly good at it for how recently she must have started?  
  
Much as she hated to admit it, she couldn’t help her sister right now. She was exhausted and she didn’t know how long it would take for her will to recover from the draining of using that pure Evil magic. Not to mention that the Overlady of the North rescuing Eleanore de la Vallière from jail would put her parents in danger. No, she… she had to trust in her mother and father and that their influence could keep her big sister safe for now.  
  
Henrietta was… a problem. Everything was going horribly wrong if the crown princess was actually a practicing necromancer – and worse, she was doing it to help Louise! Louise didn’t want to be helped like that! Except she’d probably be dead now if she hadn’t been helped and she didn’t want to die and… argh, argh argh. There was no way out. Especially since, according to the history books, the royal family was actually fairly good at Evil magic. After all, Louis de la Vallière had been the son of the king, and he’d come by things honestly. So Henrietta had it in her to be a really powerful and wicked dark queen and if she did that… um. Well, it’d be bad.  
  
And double worst, that necromancer outfit caused all kinds of feelings in Louise that she really didn’t want to deal with. She thought of Emperor Lee. She felt the same sort of warm fuzzy feelings about him too. And Jessica was a very handsome man and oh look, now that she had some sugar in her and was feeling a bit better, now she could feel the hot butterflies that the incubus aura caused. Why was her heart so inconsistent? Maybe if she could find some way of sharing- no! Stupid evil thoughts. Louise viciously bit into a slice of cake. She had to try to get Henrietta off her current path, before… before she started using human skulls tied together with chains in place of a chemise. That was a thing necromancers did, right? And that darn ribcage corset was bad enough already!  
  
No more thinking about Princess Henrietta wearing only things made of bone.  
  
Which meant the most immediate problem was that the Madame de Montespan was either possessed or had been a demon all along. Louise wasn’t sure. It was tempting to suspect that she had actually been a literal creature of the Abyss, but the bit of her which could feel Evil was sure that she had got much, much more Evil when she’d done the thing with the necklace. And… uh, Louise had been monologuing at her a little bit. So maybe she’d done something very stupid to not die.  
  
Probably should have just killed her.  
  
There was a clatter behind her and a little white head appeared poking over the edge of her throne.  
  
“Mraaa?” asked Pallas, sniffing at the cup of tea.  
  
“It’s tea,” Louise said. “Do you want some? Do… do cats drink tea anyway?” She poured some out into the saucer. “If this kills you, it’s not my fault,” she added.  
  
“Prrrrup,” Pallas said, lapping at the tea happily. Presumably because there was milk in it.  
  
Louise stared down at her. What a peculiar little cat, to drink tea like that. Maybe Montespan had fed her cats tea. She seemed like the sort. “So, Pallas,” she said, talking at the cat. “Your former mistress is probably possessed by a demon, and it’s her own fault.”  
  
“Mraa.”  
  
“I’m glad you agree it’s all her fault and she’s a stupid fiancé-stealing witch. But what kind of demon do you think it was? It has the power to… to permanently kill a minion by not believing in them. Would it work on anything, do you think, or is it just minions because they’re made magically? Out of life energy and… and whatever else goes into them.”  
  
“Mraaaa?”  
  
“Perhaps it isn’t important.” Louise smiled to herself. All that money she spent on books of dark lore was paying off. “I’ve read that this kind of empowered disbelief is common among the servants of Athe the Doubter.”  
  
Pallas hissed, tail going upright. What had her acting like… oh, Louise realised. The Jester had just entered the room. Sensible cat.  
  
“So, if she’s possessed by one of Athe’s demons, I need to find out what it is and how to banish it. I’m not sure I can kill her like that, and,” Louise sighed, “I… I want revenge on _her_. Not some demon.” She didn’t say out loud that there was a particular horror to possession. She wasn’t entirely sure that Montespan deserved that. And even if she did, Louise would be showing that she was the better woman if she freed her first _before_ she burned her to death. “And…”  
  
“Hail to thee, Overlady of the North!” the jester announced with a hop and a skip, waving his bell-laden club around and only hitting himself in the head once.  
  
Louise gathered herself up, and assumed her most commanding expression. “Be gone,” she ordered. “Leave my presence.”  
  
“Corrupter of Princesses!” countered the jester. “Destroyer of the Pirate Fleet!”  
  
“I didn’t corrupt her! She… she sort of did it herself!”  
  
“The Bruxelles Bomber!”  
  
That bit was mostly true, she had to admit. “Just go away!” she snapped.  
  
The jester shook his bells. “All hail the Pharaoh of Deni-” he began.  
  
Then he was hit in the face by a ballistic Pallas. All four sets of claws were out and she began mauling his face viciously, yowling like a berserk thing. The jester swung wildly, trying to get the furious feline off his face, but couldn’t hit the little creature. He stepped backwards and with a shriek fell down the stairs.  
  
Pallas leapt gracefully away, and stalked back to Louise’s throne. “Mraaaaa,” she informed Louise, before leaping up onto her lap.  
  
“Good girl,” Louise told the young cat fondly, stroking her. “You are a clever little kitty, aren’t you! Aren’t you?” Pallas began to purr. “Yes you are.”  
  
And so sitting on her giant evil throne, stroking the white cat on her lap in between eating bites of cake, Louise began to… scheme.

* * *

The duc de Richelieu stared out over Bruxelles, a look of bitter wryness worn on his face. He had put a lot of effort into assuming control of this place. He had scraped and bowed and tolerated the queen’s idiocy and the blathering moronic nature of his predecessor in this role of the chief justice. He had earned this position through long suffering, and now he was truly in a position to wield power as he wanted to.  
  
And yet he found himself surrounded by fools at every step of the long, winding, and covered-in-nasty-brambles path to power.  
  
Take his manservant, Rikkert le Chauve, who at this very moment was nosily blowing his nose behind him. Though why anyone would want to take him was another question. The duc was not entirely clear why he kept the imbecile in his service. Well, no, he understood why. What Rikkert lacked in intellect, manners and personal hygiene, he made up for in being too stupid to be disloyal and a certain brute strength, probably derived from the inbreeding.  
  
“Yer grace,” Rikkert said. “Mr Wardes is here to talk to you ‘bout the latest problem of stuff.”  
  
“The latest problem of stuff?” Richelieu echoed. “Oh, wonderful. A problem of ‘stuff’. What next? An issue with ‘things’?”  
  
“I think he might have one of those things too,” Rikket said.  
  
Richelieu slapped Rikkert with his cane. “No, you insolent oaf,” he said. “Don’t lie to me. You didn’t think. Your lack of thought is perhaps your most defining characteristic. Now, show him in. I’ve been expecting him.”  
  
Rikkert stared blankly at his master.  
  
“Let him in. Invite him in. Show him through here. Or am I talking to myself?” He paused. “Well, I suppose it’s the only way to get intelligent conversation around here,” he added softly.  
  
Wardes was eventually shown in. The duc looked him up and down. Jean-Jacques didn’t look well. He seldom did these days. He never seemed to be off his griffin’s back, constantly travelling around the country – and overseas. The younger man sagged down in one of the armchairs in the room while Richelieu poured wine for the two of them.  
  
“You have heard the news?” the duc asked.  
  
Holding his head in his hands, Wardes sighed. “Founder, I’m exhausted and saddle-sore,” he said, taking the wine with a nod. Half the glass vanished almost instantly. “I was in Romalia speaking with the pope, when I heard. It’s not like her.”  
  
“I quite disagree,” Richelieu said sharply. “It is entirely like her.” He sat back and looked around his lavish study, swirling his wine. “We need her on-board to keep Amstreldamme and the university content. Amstreldamme is where rebellions start – and where they acquire bored student mages. The last thing we need is undergraduates running around shouting ‘Viva la resistance!’ because they think they can pick up impressionable young heiresses and heirs by being ‘heroes’.” His mouth twisted in an expression of mockery. “If she’s going to do things like that, you should dispose of her and get a mistress more useful to our cause.”  
  
“The cause being power?” Wardes asked hollowly.  
  
“What better cause would there be? Ideologies, you can pick up for a thousand an ecu on any street market. None of them mean anything without real power.” Richelieu sipped his wine, and rose to approach a map of the country on his desk. “Look at Rikkert. He’s like a weathervane for the stinking ill-educated opinion of the street. Tell me, Rikkert, what do you think of the circumstances surrounding the Bononia Problem?”  
  
Rikkert frowned. “I think problems are bad,” he said after some thought.  
  
“Quite so. You see?” Richelieu said. “The peasantry has all the brains of a turnip. That is, all the peasants combined have the brains of one turnip. And most nobles find that when they sit down to dinner alone, they’re not the smartest sitting at the table. No, the smartest at the table would be the pork.”  
  
“Is there a point to this?” Wardes asked quietly.  
  
“Yes. We are the smartest and most capable nobles in the country. That is why we are the Regency Council. I was quite explicit; all of us in our little arrangement needed to be able to find our bottoms without requiring the use of both hands, a labelled map and the assistance of a team of trackers specially trained at getting to the bottom of things. Unfortunately, your dear Françoise Athenais may be quite capable of finding your behind, but apparently has forgotten how to find her own grotesquely skinny one. This kind of idiotic destabilising action will be a banner for idiotic popinjay students whining about ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ and maybe even ‘equality’, though of course most students aren’t actually in favour of equality as soon as they’re reminded how much they benefit from inequality so they’ll probably quietly remove that from their slogans.”  
  
“You have a better idea of what to do,” Wardes said. “Your suggestions?”  
  
“My suggestions? Well, here’s what you need to do,” Richelieu said bluntly. “Get your behind over to Amstreldamme and make your sweet consort remember how much you love her. Whisper in her ear sweet words of nothingness. Or get her stinking drunk. I don’t really care. I don’t see what you like about women who can fit in travel cases and have a physique which looks like a washboard with two peas on, but we can no-doubt find you a fresh one if you can’t bring her under control.”  
  
Wardes sighed. “We’ve know each other for a long time. It’s complicated.”  
  
“Well, de-complicate it. She’s probably only doing it for attention because she’s an irrational woman and is feeling neglected. Take a week out of your schedule and spend it on her. Or under her, if she prefers it that way.”  
  
The other man rolled his eyes, but acquiesced. “Very well. I’ll certainly see what she’s doing – and why.”  
  
“And for Founder’s sake, don’t let her execute Eleanore de la Vallière,” Richelieu added. “I’ve put a lot of work into trying to weaken the de la Vallière power base. The last thing we need is some uppity twit braying at us because we ‘accidentally’ executed their daughter and now all the high nobility are madder than a hatter who’s decided that his new hat is to be made out of frozen mercury. Just keep her locked up in some deep dank dungeon until some proper evidence against her can be obtained.” He winked.  
  
“Is there something in your eye, your grace?” Rikkert asked.  
  
Richelieu turned to face him. “No, but there’s something in yours,” he said.  
  
“There is, your grace?”  
  
“Yes,” Richelieu said, and punched him in the face.  
  
“… thank you, your grace. I don’t think there’s anything in my eye now that your fist has knocked it out. Very gracious of you, your grace.”  
  
Wardes downed the rest of his drink. “I’ll head to my townhouse and get some sleep, then set off for Amstreldamme in the morning,” he said.  
  
Richelieu paused, just before he could punch his manservant in the face again for that stupidity. “One more thing, Jean-Jacques,” he said coolly. “The reports say that the Overlady of the North, aka ‘I can’t think up a proper Evil title’ was involved in the fiasco. I dare say she is becoming quite an annoyance – and no doubt has desires on the throne, considering she has the princess and has probably controlled her mind or stolen her body or done whatever is usually done with princesses. She seems the sort, with her mannish mode of dress. She probably needs shooting in the face.”  
  
Wardes tilted his head, clearly thinking. “I know some men in the Griffin Knights who are good trackers,” he said. “I’ll set them to the task.”  
  
Rikkert seemed about to make a suggestion, so the duc punched him in the face again and spared the world his latest idiocy.


	48. A Very Manly Yet Tedious Interlude

**A Very Manly Yet Tedious Interlude**  
  
The late summer sun beat down on the coast of northern Romalia, close to the Gallian border. Rolling hills covered in terraces descended down to the shallow warm sea. On the other side of the water lay the lands of the elves – but the most that could be seen of those terrible inhumans was the occasional glint of their shining ships and strange flying craft.  
  
“You know,” Kirche said, stretching out on the chaise lounge on the veranda, “we really do need to save more nobles with gorgeous summer homes. At least if they let us use them. Rescuing the comte from the bandit lords was the best choice we made all summer.” She clapped her hands together, and a butler drifted out of the main house.  
  
“What would it be, milady?” he asked, eyes not exactly on her face.  
  
“A glass of wine. Red, I think.”  
  
“Very well, milady.” The man headed inside again.  
  
“Yes,” Kirche said self-satisfaction clear in her voice. “We have to do this more often.”  
  
Montmorency looked up from her ledgers and shot her a disgusted glare. “Stop gloating,” she said darkly.  
  
“What, because I heroically swung in and duelled the bandit prince, and took his head and incidentally earned us all a very nice reward?” Kirche said innocently.  
  
“Stop it.” Montmorency scowled. “And put some more clothes on. By which I mean ‘put some clothes on’. It might be acceptable for a man to lounge around in just… just his unmentionables…”  
  
“The term is ‘underwear’,” Kirche said helpfully. “Although this isn’t underwear. It is a powerful artefact that was invented long ago on an atoll far in the Mystic East, beyond even Nippon. The place was destroyed long ago by powerful elven magic, but a few relics of it survive.” She pointed at her chest. “Like this! Myths say it has a powerful enchantment on it, but I think that’s probably just other girls realising how good it makes me look and blaming magic."  
  
“…you certainly shouldn’t be wearing some… some barbarian magical relic! It’s improper! Dress like a proper lady would!” Monmon was letting her hair down by restraining herself to a chemise, a petticoat and a light muslin gown.  
  
“I’m wearing more than a man would,” Kirche pointed out.  
  
“Barely!”  
  
“Well, you know, my dear girl, if a man could get away with lazing around like this…” Kirche coughed, and when her hand came away, a grandiose waxed moustache lay on her top lip. “I believe I am a man, now.”  
  
Montmorency turned bright red. Stare at her chest, she told herself. Don’t focus on the moustache. Or where on earth she could have been _keeping_ the moustache. She could feel a quite un-ladylike flush coming on. Oh, Kirche’s exposed body was unattractive and female, but that face! That moustache! “You’re not fooling anyone!” she blurted out. “Take that off! And put some clothes on!”  
  
“Monmon, my dear, I’m just catching the sun. It’s good for you, you know,” Kirche said, her oiled bronze skin glistening in the sun. She did at least peel off the false moustache. “You’d be less grumpy if you took that gown off. And less hot.”  
  
The paler Tristainian girl sniffed. “It makes you look like someone who works out in the fields,” she said. “ _Proper_ noblewomen should wear sunscreen. And for your information, I am perfectly cool because I am a water mage and I made sure my summer clothes were tailored for comfort. I don’t need to risk looking like… like some manual labourer!”  
  
Kirche rolled over. “Oh dear,” she said, “are you jealous because you turn lobster-red under too much sunlight while I acquire a glowing healthy tan and have never been sunburnt in my life?” The door slid open, and Tabitha stepped out, holding a parasol. She wore a long pale blue gown which reached to her ankles and her wrists. “Hey, Tabby? Do you think Monmon’s just jealous of me?”  
  
Tabitha shot her a glance. “Eet eez not proper for une noblewomen to have brown skin like a peasant,” she said critically. “Pale skin eez what ze beautiful women at court have.”  
  
“… yes, but Tabby? You’re even paler than Monmon.”  
  
“Oui. Zat eez a fact. Quite unlike you, we are pale.”  
  
Kirche pursed her lips. “Hey, Monmon. Did… did Tabby just make a bitchy comment? Or am I just dreaming?”  
  
“Stop trying to change the topic,” Montmorency grouched, flicking a lock of blonde hair away from her face. “You just _let_ the butler – who is a commoner, as we both _well_ know – stare at you!”  
  
“Of course I did,” Kirche drawled. “It feels really good, you know?”  
  
“No! I don’t know!”  
  
Kirche frowned. “You mean you don’t feel good when men admire your beauty? When they’re staring at you with lust in their eyes? Because, really, it feels amazing. Wait. Have you even tried it? Maybe if you-”  
  
“You have no shame!” Montmorency snapped at her. “I’m not going to… stupid slatternly Germanian.”  
  
“An insult is just a fart with words,” Kirche said gnomically.  
  
Monmon twitched her wand and muttered something, and dumped a ball of cold water on the taller girl’s head. With a melodramatic scream Kirche rolled off her lounger and fell into the pool, water moving with suspicious force and momentum to somehow exactly drench the blonde.  
  
Quite firmly, Tabitha turned tail and left, letting the patio degenerate into an all-out splash fight.

* * *

Guiche had been banished from the south veranda by Montmorency on the grounds that Kirche made the entire area unsuitable for men. As a result, Danny was down with him on the practice courts. In theory, the older boy was helping Danny with his swordplay. In practice, one of them had been trained by Blitzhart von Zerbst and the other hadn’t, so it was Guiche who was getting the pointers. Nevertheless, practice was occurring and the two of them were sweating heavily.  
  
“Lower your guard slightly, and turn your hand outwards a bit more,” Danny said firmly.  
  
“Like this?”  
  
“Yes. Your guard drops after a few minutes. Against someone trained in the Romalian style, you’ll be leaving yourself open against cuts to your arm if they’re using a light, flicky blade. Now! En garde!”  
  
The following exchange of blows seemed more to Danny’s satisfaction. After he announced his satisfaction, Guiche grinned, and then stuck his head in a bucket of water. The summer heat had left the two of them sweat-drenched, and Guiche was more than happy to strip off his protective padding and undershirt, hanging them out to dry.  
  
“I’m fine,” Danny said quickly to Guiche’ questioning look, as he blotted his forehead. He sighed. “Just bored. Why do we have to stay here? We could be out doing stuff! But we’re just waiting around! Mother’s going to insist I come home soon and we’re wasting it!”  
  
Guiche shrugged, towel hanging around his shoulders. “You get to appreciate the resting bits more when you get older,” the eighteen-year old told the twelve-year old with the voice of vast experience. “Although, yes, I must say that I’m getting a little weary of this. But, oh well. It keeps Monmon and Kirche happy.”  
  
“Urgh. Sisters.”  
  
“I don’t see much of my sisters,” Guiche admitted. “One’s married off, and Marie is just six. She’s spoiled rotted because she came as quite a surprise. How many sisters do you have?”  
  
Danny looked awkward. “That’s a complicated question,” he said moodily. “I have no idea how many bastards Dad has.”  
  
“… um.” Guiche tried to change the topic. “You know what we need?” he announced, wrapping one arm and pointing towards the mountains. “We need a boys’ night out. Or more than just a night. A few days, even! I bet there are dragons or monsters or… or caves full of treasure up in their mountains.”  
  
“Maybe,” Danny said dubiously.  
  
“Well, we won’t know if we don’t check,” Guiche said firmly. “We’ll go find some remote village or scared town or something and find out what their problems are, and then we’ll go hero a bit without Monmon complaining that what we’re doing isn’t in line with her valuations for how much our time is worth.”  
  
“What is her thing about money?” Danny asked, puffing his chest up. “She passes over chances to… to do heroic things because she says they’re not worth our time!”  
  
Guiche sighed, slumping down. “I know it doesn’t look great,” he admits. “But she’s Monmon. She’s always been like that.”  
  
“Well, she’s your fiancée, isn’t she? Get her to be more heroic!”  
  
The boy blanched. “My… my fiancée?” he asks, coughing. “Uh… well, no.”  
  
Danny frowned, jumping up to the wall to sit on the hot stone. “Huh? But you act like…”  
  
“Oh, I’d like it – and I think she would too. I mean, I think so. She’s… hard to read sometimes. But we’ve been doing this stuff for over a year and…” Guiche leaned back against the sandstone, staring up at the blue sky. “I guess I’ve grown up a bit since we started. I like her a lot and I know she likes me at least a little bit, but… but things just aren’t that easy.”  
  
Danny swung his legs. “Is this old person stuff?” he asked.  
  
“Hah! Yeah, I guess it is,” Guiche said, running his hands through his floppy blond hair. “If it was just us, we could probably just go out and find a chapel, but… it’s not. My parents wouldn’t approve a marriage to someone who doesn’t have a dowry, for all that I’m a third son and not really good for much. My old man’s proud of me for my heroing and the way I’m bringing home treasure – I’ve got enough put aside that I can buy a commission in the army in one of the good quality regiments or even join one of the knightly orders. But…” he sighed, “… that’s not enough that they’d ever approve an engagement with her as things stand.”  
  
Danny crossed his arms. “Look, just stop dancing around the point and say it,” he demanded.  
  
“You’re a von Zerbst,” Guiche said simply. “Your family’s a big land owner, incredibly rich and incredibly famous. And you’re too young to be thinking about arranged marriages, but we’re not so lucky. Monmon thinks about money all the time and haggles like a La Rochelle fishwife because money’s the only way she can avoid being married off to some new money sort who’d be willing to pass over a dowry to get their hands on her title. And that’s why you’re not going to even _breathe_ a word of what I just said to her? Got it? She doesn’t know how much I’ve put together. She spends all the time worrying about it and keeping up the masquerade and telling everyone that things are fine.”  
  
Unexpected tears welled up in Danny’s eyes. He furiously wiped them away. “That’s so sad,” he whispered. “I… I know how she feels.”  
  
“Enough about that! Time for a manly adventure of manliness! Also adventure! And… oh, Tabitha? What is it?”  
  
Tabitha approached them, eyes dead. “I am coming wiz you,” she said firmly. “Ze arguments of Kirche and Montmorency are making my ‘ead ‘urt. And I want to kill somezing.”  
  
“But it’s a boy’s trip,” Danny protested. “Full of manliness. And you’re not-”  
  
Tabitha gave him a cold look. Danny – in an entirely manly way – stepped behind Guiche.  
  
“Are you sure?” Guiche asked with a shrug. “We’re just going to go see if there’s anything in the area. And we’re not using any of Monmon’s value charts. There won’t be much of value.”  
  
“Zat eez fine wiz me. I just want zem to stop arguing so I can read een peace. And Sylphid needs une petite flight or she will get fat.”  
  
The dragon made a grumbling noise, and insofar as a creature without lips could pout, it pouted.  
  
Guiche looked at Danny. Danny looked at Guiche.  
  
“Well,” Guiche said thoughtfully, “dragons are exceptionally manly and proud animals much like unicorns, unlike womanly beasts like manticores and griffons.”  
  
“Sylphid eez une girl,” Tabitha pointed out, and was ignored.  
  
“And I _suppose_ if we had a dragon, we wouldn’t need to walk as far,” Danny added, with the expression of someone who didn’t want to compromise on one’s masculinity, but who also didn’t like sore feet.  
  
“I suppose we could declare Tabitha and her dragon to be honorary boys for our boys’ night out,” Guiche decided. “After all, true manliness lives in the soul. The soul of a man lets you do things like slay demons, romance princesses and punch dragons. That is the ultimate challenge and right of men and…”  
  
Sylphid leaned in and harrumphed. Her breath smelt of blood and her teeth just coincidentally happened to catch the light in a sinister manner.  
  
“… when I talk about punching dragons, of course present company is excluded,” Guiche added hastily, waving his hands in front of him. “As you are a beautiful and elegant creature, I would no more fight you than I would damage a delicate wild blossom. May I complement you on… uh, the fine sheen of your scales which glisten like the depths of the ocean and the summer sky and the sharpness of your very prominent teeth which are surely… uh, the white of the innocence of your beautiful and clean draconic and not at all evil soul.”  
  
The blue dragon nodded solidly, and fluttered her eyelashes at him.  
  
“I slay demons,” Tabitha said, returning to an earlier point.  
  
“And I didn’t say that the soul of a woman doesn’t also let you do those things,” Guiche clarified, after pausing for breath. “It’s just that demon-slaying is a very manly thing to do. Even if. Um. You’re better at it than men.”  
  
“Father slayed the Queen of the Succubae,” Danny said, nodding. He paused. “I mean, she must have come back to life again through some kind of demonic power, but he said he smote her with his mighty weapon so there must have been no way she could have survived that.”  
  
“Blitzhart von Zerbst. What a guy,” Guiche said, eyes misty.  
  
“’E eez ze mightiezt ‘ero around,” Tabitha agreed, looking similarly wistful.  
  
Guiche thrust out his chest. “That’s settled, then! So, I’ll head down to the kitchens and get us some supplies. Danny, grab our kit bags. And Tabitha…”  
  
“I will get ze maps and also prepare Sylphid.”  
  
“… yes, you do that. Splendid!”

* * *

The tolling of the bell filled the air as the brave and valiant heroes checked the board outside a nearby village church. Guiche read the sign with the aid of a finger.  
  
“So… uh.” He cleared his throat, and took a sip from the water-flask at his hip. “So… um.”  
  
“I thought you said you spoke Romalian!” Danny objected.  
  
“I do! But they spell things differently up here! And the local accent is hard! Do you want a go?”  
  
“Don’t be stupid! I don’t speak Romalian!”  
  
“Well, let me do it,” Guiche said, flapping his shirt. “Sorry, it’s just so hot out here. I get short-tempered in the heat. Right, Tabitha?”  
  
The girl was sitting on the church wall, reading a book. The air around her was cold. “Non,” she said, as her dragon rolled around playfully in the dusty road.  
  
“… uh, right. Ahem. So, it says… oh, my. It says that a young girl was kidnapped by bears!”  
  
Danny stared. “Are you sure that says bears? Or kidnapped? Are you sure it doesn’t say killed?”  
  
“I think so. Pretty sure that’s the Romalian for bear. Tabitha?”  
  
“Eet eez possible.”  
  
“You didn’t even look.”  
  
Tabitha looked up from her book for a fraction of a second. “Eet eez possible.”  
  
“Well, that can’t stand! We can’t let bears go kidnapping girls! But… oh! It also says they’ve seen a large orcish warband in the mountains. Who knows what calamity such vile beasts might impose on the world? Such malevolence! Such-”  
  
Tabitha gave a mono-shouldered shrug. “Sylphid eez ‘ungry,” she said, slipping off the wall. “I must find ‘er food. Ze orcs will do.”  
  
The dragon rolled to her feet enthusiastically at the mention of food. Her exhalation kicked up dust, which blew in Guiche’s face.  
  
“Why, certainly,” he said, coughing. “We would not want such a beautiful creature to suffer and wither away. We will track down the bears.”  
  
Danny pouted, looking out over the valley. “But I want to fight some orcs,” he protested.  
  
“Saving a poor girl is more important,” Guiche said firmly. “Saving young maidens is party of the duty of a true noble. You see, just as the peasantry provides us with their dues, so we owe them the obligation to protect them. Should we shirk on that obligation – why, we’d be no better than bandit lords. That is part of the core of the chivalry of any gentleman and…”  
  
His speech was interrupted as Tabitha took off. The wingbeats of the dragon threw up dust from the dry earth, and both Danny and Guiche were reduced to spluttering.  
  
“… and… we have… have to keep to such a code, even if s-s-s…” Guiche sneezed, “… some might call it archaic.” He sighed. “I really wish she’d take more care with her take-offs,” he said darkly. “Honestly!”  
  
“So we’re going to have to walk?” Danny asked. He still looked rather sullen about not getting to fight orcs.  
  
“Yes.” Guiche took a deep breath. “I’m going to ask around. See if they know which direction the bears took her or if there’s a goat trail that goes in the right direction or… or something like that. The peasantry can be of great use to heroes like us! Not to mention, it makes them feel appreciated.”  
  
“… why do you look like you’re bracing yourself?”  
  
“I don’t remember the word for goat-trail, all right?” He pursed his lips. “I need to find a little old lady or something. They always know.”  
  
Danny squinted. “Are you sure you haven’t caught the sun?”  
  
“Trust me!” Guiche stepped promptly up to a little old woman dressed in dusty black, carrying a basket of washing on her head. “Um. Mi dispiace, signora, ma dove è il posto che l'orso ha preso la ragazza? C'è una... um... um... ‘goat-trail’? ‘Baa baa’, wait, no, that’s a sheep. Danny? What noise do goats make? Ah, never mind! Un percorso? C'è un percorso? Il mio nome è Guiche de Gramont e...”  
  
“Ah! Guiche de Gramont! Tu sei il famoso eroe! Oi! Romeo!” the old woman called out to an equally old man. “Quest'uomo è Guiche de Gramont!”  
  
“Guiche de Gramont!”  
  
“Sì, Guiche de Gramont!”  
  
“L'eroe famoso?”  
  
“Sì! L'eroe famoso, Guiche de Gramont!”  
  
The older man apparently called Romeo ambled closer. He smelt of old wine and dried tomatos and his wispy white hair stuck out from under his broad-brimmed hat. “You! You are Guiche de Gramont! We have heard about you, sì sì. That you are coming... it is buona news, sì. We will help you, yes. My grandson, he see where the bears head! We have a brave hero now who will help little Julia!”  
  
Guiche nudged Danny. “See? It always works. Monmon and Kirche never really understand how much information you can get by doing a few things to help out villagers, but I find they always know exactly what you need.”  
  
“You know, I have always wondered how you beat the wicked Fouquet,” the old man continued. “I wanted to be a hero when I was young, but I never summed up to much. I killed some giant rats and a goblin or two, but I could never get higher up. Share your secrets, so I can try again some time!”  
  
Guiche laughed, and the old man laughed with him. “Oh, that. It wasn’t easy. I had to be cunning and smart and...”  
  
The two of them ambled off together. Danny was left standing, a decidedly confused look on his face. This was not how his father’s training said that things were meant to go.

* * *

The wings of the dragon beat powerfully as the beast carried itself and its mistress through the sky.  
  
“Tabitha?” Irukuwa asked.  
  
“Oui?” Tabitha said, sitting cross-legged on her dragon’s back. She was reading a dog-eared copy of the famed philosophical textbook on moral justice; _Péchés et la Sensibilité_.  
  
“... what do you think of Guiche?”  
  
“’E is a fool. But a useful one. And sometimes ‘e is less foolish zan ‘e seems.” She cocked her head. “But ‘e is so very foolish zat eet eez not ‘ard to be less foolish zan ‘e seems.”  
  
“Oh! So... you don’t like him?”  
  
Tabitha turned a page in her book. “Non,” she said.  
  
“So... you do like him?”  
  
“Non. ‘E eez tolerable.”  
  
“Oh!” Irukuwa banked into a turn. “He is quite handsome by human standards. And he says that I’m pretty.”  
  
“’E says that to all ze ladies. You are a lady. Zerefore ‘e complements you.”  
  
Irukuwa took a deep breath. “Well, I think that’s... that’s nice of him,” she said mournfully.  
  
Tabitha was silent for a while. “Do you ‘ave... feelings for ‘im?” she asked. “Feelings for an ‘uman zat are not just ‘I want to eat ‘im’? Do you want to marry ‘im?”  
  
“No! No, that’s... that’s ridiculous. Why would I marry him? Although I wouldn’t mind sampling the goods, if you know what I mean.”  
  
Tabitha gave her dragon the blank look of someone whose education had entirely focussed on the ways to kill a man and who had got very good at tuning out Kirche.  
  
The dragon managed to contrive to blush. “Well... um... oh! I smell fire down below. Fire and... and yes, orc. That might be the orc camp.” She nodded her head towards a column of black smoke rising up from a hamlet. “Or at least somewhere they’ve attacked. Should I land?”  
  
Tabitha looked up from her book, and thought for a while. “Non,” she said after a while. “I will look. Come if I call.”  
  
And like that, she leaned sideways in her saddle and let herself fall, book in hand.  
  
“Thank you, orcs,” muttered the dragon. “I didn’t want to have to explain that to her. I might even eat you slightly less for that. Or maybe chew more.”

* * *

“These are certainly bear tracks,” Danny said, rising from his stooped position where he’d been examining the marks on the dusty tracks. The two of them had followed the path up the hillside, and dry scrubs sprouted around them on the rocky terrain. The grass was all yellow. The landscape was parched. “And they’re heading towards that ruin.”  
  
Guiche shielded his eyes against the sun. A ruined castle was built into the cliff side. The peasants had said that it had originally been built by a bandit lord, but it had been long abandoned. In the spring, goat-herders used it as a shelter, but everything was too dry up here during the summer months for it to be worth bringing animals up here. Especially since the goats ate everything in spring. “Well, onwards and upwards,” he said cheerfully. “At least a bear-infested ruin is in the shade.”  
  
“Right on!” Danny agreed. “Let’s get this over and done with. It’s only a bear, after all!”  
  
“Especially since we let Tabitha take the food,” Guiche added.  
  
“Yes…”  
  
“Well, it wasn’t so much ‘let’ as the fact that it was on Sylphid and so she flew off with it.”  
  
“Yeah, but…”  
  
“But I’m sure we will have no problems against a dumb animal,” Guiche said, before his brow crinkled. “I mean, it’s not like there’ll be _two_ insane Gallian mages who are kidnapping humans so they can remove their brains and use them to make human-animal hybrids.”  
  
“Wait, what?” Danny wiped his brow off with his sleeve, and stared wide-eyed at Guiche. “They did what?”  
  
“Oh, it was last spring. Kirche burned the place to the ground, though. I ran the mage through. He was obsessed with snakes. Not too bright. Snakes don’t have arms, so… well, he had to hold his wand with his tongue.” Guiche shook his head. “We never even got the story of how he managed to operate on himself.”  
  
Danny opened his mouth, and closed it again. “Um. You know what, that’s just stupid.” He took a breath, looking around. “Yeah. Just a bear. Mmm. I think we can use that dry gully over there to advance on the ruin.”  
  
Keeping low, the two picked their way up to the ruined walls. There were more tracks around the gates, but they slipped through a wrecked culvert rather than risk an encounter. There were shambling bears moving around the area, patrolling with too much intellect for mere beasts.  
  
Back pressed against a wall, Guiche raised a finger. He could hear voices on the wind, and smell something alchemical. Whispering a spell, he reached out and sunk a hand into the building next to him. His hand went into it like clay, and he pulled put a handhold. “Follow me,” he whispered. “We’ll get up high. We can’t let this happen! No real gentleman lets bears eat innocent peasant girls! The peasantry demands on us to defend them! That’s why we have magic in the first place!”  
  
Danny nodded enthusiastically. “Right!”  
  
Clambering over the side of the buildings and up onto the roofs, they headed towards the voices. They were coming from the keep, a sandstone structure coming from the cliff face which was the most intact part of the ruins. The alchemical smell got stronger as they got nearer. Then Guiche saw a flash of movement through one of the windows and heard a female scream. A fallen wall proved an adequate bridge into the keep, and the two of them crept up to the source of the noise.  
  
Carefully, Guiche removed a stone from the wall, turning it into sand. That gave them enough to peer through into the adjoining room. Tall cabinets were filled with glass beakers of various shapes and sizes. There were columns of magical ice, keeping the place chill even in summer – and a bear carcass hanging from the ceiling. The whole room smelt of a mixture of chemicals and old blood.  
  
And in the centre of the room, the girl from the posters was chained to a table. There was another person in the room, but they were not exactly human. Though their face was that of a man, it was attached to the shoulders of a great bear. They had four arms – two that were originally the bears, and then another two human arms stitched to the torso. Those ones concerned Guiche more, because one held a wand and the other held a bonesaw.  
  
“Aiuto! Aiuto! Mi aiuti per favore!” the peasant girl called out.  
  
“Zere eez no use in trying to shout for ‘elp,” said the twisted mage. “For you are ze mozt lucky of women. I will make you a god. Ze time of men ‘as ended! Now will be ze time of ze new race! A mozt glorious era!”  
  
“Oh, for goodness sake,” Guiche muttered. “Not again.” He glanced around. “And here we are, with no ropes to swing in through the window on. I suppose we’ll just have to knock a dramatic hole in the wall.”  
  
Danny’s expression was one of almost pure glee.

* * *

The rocky countryside smouldered under the afternoon sun. Crickets chirruped in the air. But here in a remote valley, where the smoke from grassfires filled the air, a confrontation was taking place by a large rocky cairn.  
  
The orcish war chief was nearing four metres in height. His skin colour was hard to tell, as he was utterly covered in mud and dried gore. Under the gore, tattoos sprawled in an utterly tasteless display. His muscles were so overdeveloped that they were fighting for space and the veins that ran across their surface were so prominent that they seemed on the verge of leaping off the surface entirely. And his face! In appearance he was more piggish than manlike or elven, with a flat nose, cracked yellow tusks which protruded from his jawline, and prominent pointed ears. He wore a belt made of skulls and carried a massive heavy iron staff with lead weights on both ends. His weapon showed signs of long use, and he was fond of hefting it casually, showing off his inhuman strength.  
  
Behind him were the massed ranks of lesser orcs. Though they were not quite as massive as their leader, each one of them was clearly far stronger than a human – and their war trophies marked a bloody history of their deeds. They would, given a chance, fall upon the nearest city and raze it, devouring and killing as they saw fit.  
  
By contrast, Tabitha was short for her age and that age was just shy of her fifteenth birthday. She was slight, pale, and delicate-looking, with deep blue eyes that almost concealed a look of vulnerability. She had reluctantly put down her book in acknowledgement of the situation she found herself in.  
  
It wasn’t fair. Not a little bit. What kind of terrible person would send a young girl not even in the full bloom of womanhood against a poor defenceless orc warband?  
  
“I’m gonna eat you,” the orc growled in badly pronounced Romalian. “I’m gonna grind your bones to dust and put ‘em in my soup. It’s gonna be just a snack. Gotta eat meat and eggs. Keeps me strong.” He made a fist, curling his arm and hefting his heavy weighted staff. “It’s a beaut, ain’t it? I’m the strongest there is. Look at ‘em. I’ll even let you touch ‘em if you want to.”  
  
“Ze orcish brain eez mostly made of water,” Tabitha observed. “Under ze bone.”  
  
The chieftan scowled. “Who d’ya think you are, talkin’ when I’m flex-” he began. He didn’t say anything else, unless you counted drooling. He tottered, staggered and fell, collapsing in a clash of rusty metal and meat.  
  
“Who eez next in line to be ze leader?” Tabitha said.  
  
A hulking beast dressed in the remnants of a knight’s armour stepped up. It was nearly as big as the previous leader, and carried a small tree as a club. “You killed my hubby,” it growled. That probably meant it was female, but who knew with orcs? “I’m gonna kill-”  
  
“Who eez next in line to be ze leader?” Tabitha asked, over the clatter.  
  
“I’m is biggest so I’m-”  
  
“Who eez next in line to be ze leader?”  
  
The orcs appeared to be learning, and no one stepped forwards. There was some discussion. “Um. You are?” tried an orc, displaying genius-level intellect for its species.  
  
Tabitha considered the possibility of assuming a new career as an orcish warlord. It didn’t appeal to her.  
  
“Non,” she said.  
  
And it was then that the orcs found that the large rocky cairn they had gathered around was in fact a dragon who’d cast an illusion on herself. Long ago, a member of a now-forgotten race of Halkeginia had said that only a fool would laugh at a live dragon. These orcs weren’t laughing. However, the few survivors of the warband did come up with a new saying, which went as follows.  
  
“Never stand next to the mouth of a live dragon when that dragon’s covered the ground in tricksy magic that stops any of you from moving and it’s working with a scary human girl who’s killing all of you who manage to get away from the dragon that’s trying to eat you all.”  
  
It was considered astute advice and one of the foremost cognitive developments of orcish culture, insofar as orcs had culture.

* * *

The twisted hybrid leaned in, a mad look on his face. “Do not cry, leetle girl. Eet eez time for your ascension! Zis may ‘urt a leetle bit, but…”  
  
The wall behind him exploded, sending glassware shattering everywhere from the overturned beakers.  
  
“Stop right there! I won’t let you do that, you madman!” Guiche de Gramont announced in the voice he practiced in front of the mirror when he felt that Kirche or Montmorency wouldn’t hear and make fun of him for it. His mantle flapped in the breeze, and just for a moment the sun through the cracks in the ceiling illuminated him in a pool of light. “We shall stop you!”  
  
“Yeah! We’re going to cut your head off! And put it on a pike! And cut off all your limbs, drive a stake through your heart, chop your organs into mincemeat, cover them in garlic, silver and witchbane, set fire to them, and then scatter the ashes,” Danny contributed. Unfortunately, Guiche was taking up all of the pool of light and left no space for him.  
  
“… zat sounds like a lot more zan would be needed,” the mage said faintly.  
  
Danny shrugged. Generations of bordering the de la Vallière family had led the von Zerbst family to develop a fine sense of tactical awareness and strategic heroism. The selective pressures had been notable, and the von Zerbsts had learned multiple ways of ensuring their rivals stayed dead when they were killed.  
  
“We are here to save this poor maiden!” Guiche declared. “Surrender, and you will be treated fairly as befits our honour as gentlemen. Else we will put you to the sword!”  
  
“Guiche de Gramont?” managed the peasant girl, looking over at him with a sudden expression of hope on her face.  
  
“Quiet! Put moi to ze sword?” The human head on top of the bear tilted to one side. “Do you zink swords will ‘arm moi? Non! I am a new race! A superior one! Better than you pazetic ‘umans!”  
  
“Hah! Well, that’s just as well, because we’re actually going to set you on fire!” Danny shouted.  
  
“Danny, please. I’m trying to talk.” Guiche tilted his head. “I don’t see why you would do that to yourself,” he said. “You’re a human head stitched onto a bear torso, with two human arms attached to the front. That seems… unusual.”  
  
“Zey called moi crazy!” the mage ranted. He was frothing at the mouth slightly. Guiche suspected he’d taken a lot of alchemical potions. You’d have to be on potions to consider this to be a good idea. “Zey did not understand moi! ‘Umans are a dead end! Zey will not survive with ze elves and ze vampires and ze dragons! I saw eet! Ze others at the laboratories… zey did not! Only a few brave minds understood how ze chimerism process could be used to make us better! We ‘ave transcended human limits!”  
  
“Limits like… not being a head attached to a bear? Yes,” Guiche said, trying to keep a level tone. The madman was waving the bonesaw worryingly close to his chained up prisoner. “I can see why you might have considered that to hold you back.”  
  
“’Olding moi back! Exactly! But ze bears are strong! Stronger zan men! Stronger zan elves! And… well, ‘ave you ever tried to stitch an ‘uman ‘ead to a dragon?” There was genuine curiosity in his voice.  
  
“No.”  
  
“Eet does not work. Trust moi on zis.”  
  
Guiche stroked his chin. “But surely there must have been a reason you settled on this goal in life?” he asked the man with all apparent seriousness. “No doubt you have an interesting story.”  
  
“Oh! I will not be fooled by you and your trickery! You are Guiche de Gramont! You killed ma brother!”  
  
Guiche swallowed. “Uh…”  
  
“I ‘ated ma brother! So zank you! But I am smarter than ‘im!”  
  
“Indeed, indeed,” Guiche said, reaching down to his hip. “Care for some wine?”  
  
“’Ah! Another trick!”  
  
Guiche shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said, taking a swig. “So…”  
  
“We need to rescue the girl!” Danny blazed.  
  
“No, no, he might have a good reason for doing what he does,” Guiche said reasonably. “I think we should hear him out, if he wants to explain why… uh, cutting people up and sewing them to bears is a good idea.”  
  
“Zat is most reasonable of you,” the madman said, ambling over to a counter and picking up a bottle of wine with his bear hands. This was probably a mistake, as he crushed it. “Eet all started when I was seven. Ma mozer took me ‘unting, you see, and zere was a big black bear in the woods…”

* * *

“… well, I zought zat I ‘ad found some fellow companionship when I started ma research with ze mages of ze Gallian research council. But zat was far from ze case! Zey had ze wrong priorities! Zey did not care about improving ze ‘uman race using ze superior race, bears! Zey just wanted flying airships with super-bombs fuelled by firestones and faster-firing muskets and multi-barrelled cannons! Who would want zat? We cannot improve man by merely making… pazetic toys for war! Non! We must improve ze ‘uman race by replacing eet!”  
  
“That would make sense,” Guiche said, nodding wisely.  
  
“Zat was what I said! But zey called moi mad when I showed zem how ze head of a bear cub could be attached to ze chest of a man! Worse, zey called me stupid and said zat I was just repeating ze chimerism experiments! Zey accused moi of plagiarism! Moi!”  
  
“Shocking. Utterly shocking.”  
  
“That’s it!” Danny exploded. The boy had been growing more and more disgusted-and-also-bored as the long and grievance-filled tale had continued. “You’re a monster and you’re going to pay for your…”  
  
“Danny!” Guiche said, shock in his voice. “Don’t interrupt the man. I’m sorry sir,” he apologised, “but your story is fascinating. Please, don’t let the boy’s rudeness interrupt you.”  
  
Danny turned bright red. “But…”  
  
“Shhhh.”  
  
“Ah! A leetle respect. I did not expect zat, coming from un ‘ero.”  
  
“There is such thing as manners,” Guiche said, with a courteous bow.  
  
“Indeed zere are! Very well! What was I saying?”  
  
“I do believe you were telling us about how they all called you mad? It is a fascinating topic, you know. Who would have thought so many people would be so blind as to describe you like that?” Guiche covered his mouth, coughing. “Sorry, dust in the air,” he said. “Yes, no doubt – as you so wisely expanded on – it was all a conspiracy against you.”  
  
“Ah, oui! Indeed, eet was all a conspiracy! My brother – zank you for killing ‘im, again.” He settled both pairs of shoulders and puffed up his chest, completely blind to the bronze Valkyries that were crawling along the floor behind him over to his captive. Danny seemed to be about to say something, but Guiche stood on his foot.  
  
“It was my pleasure,” Guiche said loudly to drown out Danny’s complaints.  
  
“Oui, oui! Well, zen I acted! I ‘ad to get my ‘ands on ze latest research and-”  
  
And then the ground lurched.

* * *

The air whistled through Tabitha’s hair. Technically it was still blue. This was hard to tell from the point of view of an observer, though, because of the blood that soaked her and all her garments. The great wings of her dragon beat at the air, making the crates of murder-gotten loot strapped to the back of the beast jangle and clink.  
  
“Charlotte. Charlotte. Charlotte. Charlotte. Lotty. Lotty. Lotty. Charlotte. Tabitha. Charlotte. Lotty. Charlotte. Lotty. Lotty. Tabitha.”  
  
“What?” Tabitha said, when it became clear that her dragon wasn’t going to stop saying her name.  
  
“My tummy hurts.” Irukuwa hiccupped, and spat out a chewed helmet. “Urgh! And I have metal in my teeth! It’s your fault for making me eat it! Orc is so fatty!”  
  
“Oh. Eet eez?”  
  
“Yes! It is! I’ve probably put on a tonne!” The dragon sighed. “It’s so good, but this is going to do horrors for my waistline. And let’s not get started on how bad orc is due to all the hormones and alchemical reagents in it.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“I really do try to maintain an organic diet, you know! I don’t eat stone golems! But orc is the worst kind of high fat meat! And it’s just packed full of additives!”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“But it’s so good! Oh, sure, _old_ dragons say that virgin princess is best and orc is just cheap mass-produced food, but sometimes you just need to have something… something filling and full of fat and preservatives and… and it’s not like you can get hold of princess these days. And you’d object if I nibbled on you!”  
  
“Oui.”  
  
“It’s so easy for you humans,” Irukuwa grumbled. “Especially you. You can eat what you like and not put on any weight, because you all have such small appetites. If I could eat like you do, I could have orc every day!”  
  
“Oui.”  
  
“And humans wear clothes, which means you can cover up if you get chubby. But there’s just so much expectation on girls, you know?”  
  
“Non.”  
  
“Well, there is! Everyone notices if you’re any heavier come volcano season and all the journals send their hellspawn to draw unflattering pictures of you! It’s dreadful! And they’re not the worst! The worst are other girls! Wait, no, the worst are boys! They’re both equally worst because girls make fun of you and boys won’t want to court you if you have a few too many cows. And yet _men_ can put on all the weight they want! Oh yes they can! No one cares if _they’re_ more lard than scales! Just as long as they’ve got a big hoard! It makes me sick!”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
She blew out a gust of many-coloured mist. “I don’t think you’re listening to me,” she accused.  
  
“I am,” Tabitha said, not looking up from her book. A small magical shield was stopping her from dripping blood on the pages. “Go on. Eet eez very interezting.”  
  
“If you were listening, what was I talking about?”  
  
“Orcs. And your stomach. And how eet eez unfair zat men can eat what zey like.”  
  
The dragon grumbled, but accepted that Tabitha had, all things considered, probably been listening. “So… with regards to how I’ve been going above the call of duty for you, can I have a raise?”  
  
“All ze treasure from ze orcs eez yours,” Tabitha said. “Now can you be quiet? I am trying to read.”  
  
Irukuwa smiled a draconic smile. Now, this was the unexpected advantage of taking this position. Her mistress didn’t care at all about treasure, which meant she was somehow managing to build up a nest egg despite being a self-employed freelancer straight out of education. Her parents hadn’t exactly been happy with the way that she was familiaring for a hero, but the money was keeping them quiet for now even if her father grumbled. They didn’t believe her when she pointed out that Tabitha was a killer who did bloody wetworks jobs for the Gallian throne which ended with entire families dead and thus could hardly be described as Good.  
  
Life was… life was just so hard as a young dragon! You had massive debts owed to your parents and mentors, your immortal elders had all the best holdings and none of them wanted to share, and on top of that everyone wanted you to find a mate so you could ‘continue your race’. But did any of them think about what curling around a nest of eggs and incubating them for decades did to a girl’s career? Not to mention the fact that Heroes would show up with their anti-choice agenda and try to smash the eggs.  
  
Honestly, Irukuwa was incredibly glad that the summoning had happened when it had. She’d been this close to accepting an offer to work in a big lair firm. In retrospect, it wouldn’t’ve been worth it. Sure, the pay was high, but that would’ve meant sixteen hours a day for centuries before she had a chance to make partner working under Bakrr the Black and Makenzi the Red. What use was a pile of gold if you never got to actually sleep on it?  
  
No, the pay was worse even with Tabitha’s apathy towards money, but her quality of life was unbelievably better. And-  
  
Any more draconic ponderings on her career were interrupted by a calamitous explosion from a nearby mountaintop. The wispy white clouds overhead were painted red by the light below. Shrapnel-like rock filled the air, pattering off the glowing white magical shield that Irukuwa managed to pull up just in the nick of time.  
  
“Merde,” swore Tabitha, who in a display of unexpected and unprecedented and unexpected shock was not only showing emotion, but had also dropped her book. With a flick of her wand she caught it again, but it was still unprecedented that she voluntarily let go of a book.  
  
And the reason for this was that there was a fiery red glow coming from down below. To the sound of vast shattering of rocks, one of the peaks tore itself loose from the mountainside. And revealed beneath it was hell itself.

* * *

The entire stone building shook like it was at sea. The rotting bricks of the ruined castle creaked and groaned and gave way. Guiche acted. With a flick of his wand he shed petals which formed yet more bronze Valkyries, even as the two he’d already met worked on freeing their captive.  
  
“Is this some treachery of yours?” he shouted at the bear-man. “What madness are you up to!”  
  
There wasn’t a coherent response from the mad mage – merely babbling curse-words in Gallian. A red light gleamed in his eyes and he frothed at the mouth. All rationality gone, he lunged for Danny, who leapt backwards. The building lurched again. The bear-man slammed into a wall, while Danny pin-wheeled at the edge of a hole in the crumbling floor.  
  
“Got you!” Guiche shouted, putting him back. The madman roared; a deep guttural inhuman bass noise that sprayed foam over the area. Wood splintered as Guiche’s constructs resorted to hacking apart the wooden table to free the peasant girl. “Get her away from the wall! The entire place is about to… crap!” He threw himself to the side, landing on the broken glass with a yelp of pain. Relying on his padded armour, he rolled out of the way, barely avoiding the clawed follow-up swing.  
  
Danny’s eyes darted between the peasant girl and the bear-man. His training from his father about ‘killing the monster’ clashed with the instruction on ‘getting the girl’. “Guiche! What should I do?”  
  
“Get her to higher ground!” Guiche shouted, whipping his wandsword around and scoring a thin cut along one of the human arm of the bear-man. It didn’t seem to slow him down; only make him angrier. “This whole place is… ah! Is coming down!” He leapt up onto a table, scattering surgical equipment and glass jars full of body parts. The monster roared incoherently, and he barely managed to leap away as it brought its bear arms down, smashing the table into kindling. Guiche got another slash in, leaving a long cut across the creature’s chest which barely grazed its toughened hide.  
  
“Je suis un ours!” the madman screamed, insensate to pain. He pulled up his bear arms to protect his bare arms and his bare head – a vulnerability due to his lack of a bear head. He began to chant, words stumbling. Guiche lunged, slipping past his guard to slice his cheek open.  
  
That impetuousness nearly cost him as a sudden lurch of the ground caught just as he was recovering. The young man stumbled backwards, perilously close to the edge. The stone crumbled as he waved his arms, trying not to fall.  
  
“Vous ne pouvez pas me tuer!” He was slurring his words by now. The veins on his face were black and his eyes were bloodshot. “You! You cannot keel moi! Weak! You come! You say you talk but… liar!”  
  
Feet perilously close to the precipice, Guiche edged along. The wind from behind him blew through his hair. The bear-man paced sideways, slowly advancing. Trying to force him off the edge. “I would not cut you down like a beast,” Guiche said, trying to speak clearly. “If you are a man of honour, you would fight me as a man, one on one. Not as a wild beast. We shall do this as men.”  
  
“Vous êtes un être humain inutile!” the Gallian snarled.  
  
Guiche shook his head sadly. “Now,” he shouted, leaping sideways and grabbing a solidly anchored flagpole which had survived the collapse of the building better than the rest of the walls around it.  
  
And that was when his bronze valkyries jumped the bear-man from behind. The magical constructs were not the most skilled at fighting, but they were heavy metal animated statues and when the floor was already weakened, that was enough. The stone crumbled, and with one last desperate “Je suis un ours!” the man and the valkyries together collapsed down through the floor.  
  
He fell quite a long way.  
  
Panting, Guiche pulled himself up onto the pole. Sucking in his breath, he edged his toes up onto the stone, and twisted to hook his body up. Clinging close to the surviving bits of wall, he shuffled up to safe ground occupied by Danny and the girl.  
  
“Why didn’t you cast levitate?” Danny asked.  
  
Guiche winced. “I’m not the best of mages,” he admitted, slumping down with a big sigh, “and I spent everything I had on those golems. And I had to make sure they got the wand off him. No one wanted a flying bear mage.”  
  
Danny pulled a face. “I wouldn’t have minded saying that I got to fight one,” he tried.  
  
“No. No one wanted one,” Guiche repeated. “Not in real life.” He looked down at the wispy clouds, and sighed.  
  
And then blinked.  
  
“Oh my,” Guiche said, running his hands through his hair. The peasant-girl clung onto him, an entirely sensible action given that he looked like he knew what he was doing and the only other person to cling onto was twelve. “We appear to be flying.”  
  
“Why are we flying?” Danny blurted out.  
  
“Well, it would seem that this mountain tore loose from the earth and turned into a sky island,” Guiche said thoughtfully.  
  
“That doesn’t explain why!”  
  
“No. No, it doesn’t. It’s probably something to do with the fiery hellscape below us.”  
  
Danny swung his legs. “Damn demons! They clearly went to stop us because we’re heroes! But we showed them! So… how are we going to get down?”  
  
“Our best bet is probably waiting for Tabitha to show up. I’m in no state to levitate down, and you can’t carry all three of us.”  
  
“But how do you know-”  
  
Tabitha showed up.  
  
“You are on une sky island,” she said, looking at them from the back of her dragon.  
  
“Yes, Tabitha, I know.” Guiche shrugged. “We killed the bear-man. It was another mad mage experimenting with hybrids. Well, okay, probably technically the fall killed him, but I had my valkyries push him off so… you know. I get the credit. Can we have a lift back down to-”  
  
“You’re all covered in blood!” Danny blurted out.  
  
“It’s not hers,” Guiche said wearily. “That is what you were going to say, right?”  
  
Tabitha nodded.  
  
“Yeah. Again.” Guiche sighed. “You could wash yourself off. I think you like re-appearing covered in blood just so you can say ‘it’s not mine’ when one of us looks worried for you. This isn’t the first time you’ve done it.”  
  
“Zat eez not important. I killed ze orcs.”  
  
“… what, all of them?” Danny asked in disbelief.  
  
“Zere was less zan une zousand of zem,” Tabitha said with a one-shouldered Gallian shrug. “Eet was not zat ‘ard.”  
  
Beneath them, the fiery hellscape below flickered and burned.  
  
“I feel sick,” Danny said, looking distinctly flushed. He tried to avoid looking at the hole in the world, but his gaze kept on drifting back to it. “That’s… wrong.”  
  
“Me too,” Guiche agreed, screwing his eyes shut. “To think we nearly fell into it!”  
  
“Eet eez closing,” Tabitha said bluntly.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You will need to open your eyes.”  
  
Guiche peeked out. Indeed, the rift seemed to be closing, leaving blackened igneous rock and soot in its place. “Praise the Founder,” he said, relief in his voice. “He has forced the evil away!” He began to pray out loud, and even if it didn’t help the closing it didn’t seem to hurt it. Danny joined him. Tabitha did not, but instead watched the portal with a hawk-like gaze, unblinking.  
  
The light died, and soon all that was left in the late afternoon sun was a pillar of smoke and a strong smell of sulphur.  
  
“The others will want to know,” Guiche said firmly.

* * *

The sun had set. The two von Zerbsts stood next to the crater which marked where the mountain had torn itself from the ground in all defiance of gravity. Not too far away there was a red splash mark adorned with mixed human and bear body parts. The dry landscape was ablaze with speckled fires set by the Abyssal incursion, but for once the mages were not putting them out. They were saving their magic in case the forces of evil broke through again. Or, Monmon suggested darkly as she dragged Guiche off by the ear to scold him for being irresponsible and stupid, they had already done what they needed to do.  
  
“So, I wonder if they’re finally going to do it,” Kirche said out loud.  
  
“Ewww.”  
  
“Oh, come on, you were totally wondering that too.”  
  
“I was not! Ewww!”  
  
“Oh yeah.” Kirche rubbed the back of her neck. “Sorry. Forgot that you haven’t been around them and their neverending sexual tension for literally years.”  
  
Danny pouted. “You are an _awful_ big brother. And also an awful big sister.”  
  
“Awe _some_ , Danny. Awesome is the word. You need to practice your Tristanian more.”  
  
“I know what I said,” the twelve year old said, crossing his arms and sulking.  
  
Kirche picked up a stone and bounced it up and down in her hand. “So you had fun,” she said brightly.  
  
“Didn’t manage to kill the evil bear-man mage.”  
  
“Yeah,” his big sister said knowingly. “You had fun.”  
  
Danny grinned, teeth catching the light of the orange firelight. “I did! We got to rescue a peasant and we snuck around past bears and we knocked down a wall and Guiche duelled him and it was _really_ neat to watch… and… and it was a proper, manly adventure!”  
  
“As much fun as doing stuff with Dad?”  
  
He thrust his hands into his pockets, and frowned. “It was… a different kind of fun. Like, Guiche likes to talk.”  
  
“He really does.”  
  
“Yeah, but he even talks to villains. And he sounds all sympathetic! Like he agrees with them! And then I wanted to fight, but then he hushed me and then I realised he was just distracting the bad man so he could sneak his constructs around to protect the girl. Father wouldn’t do that sort of thing.”  
  
“Well, no. Dad’d jump straight through the window, shout something and then punch the bear-man so hard his eyeballs exploded.”  
  
“Yeah. It’s pretty neat when they do that.” Danny shrugged, looking for the right words. “Guiche… he…”  
  
“Is smarter than he looks, even if he’s a pretty lousy mage?” Kirche asked.  
  
“It’s not that he’s bad! It’s just… he mostly just makes barriers and sends his bronze ladies to go stab things. While like… you burn entire formations and…” Danny blanched. “Tabitha is scary,” he said in a low voice, after looking around to make sure she wasn’t anywhere nearby.  
  
“Really?” Kirche asked, a frown on her face. “She’s just not very talkative. I wouldn’t call her scary. She’s always very friendly and a good listener.”  
  
“… Kirche. She didn’t pay any attention to the fact she was covered in blood.”  
  
“Look, I don’t know what happens in Tabitha’s head,” Kirche said with a shrug. “But that’s just because she’s a Gallian. Like Tristainian, but _worse_. She’s always been a good friend to me and never betrayed me. Ever since someone tricked us into fighting at school.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“Yeah, back in first year at the Academy. They tried to set things up so it looked like I’d set fire to her room and she’d destroyed my stuff with her wind and water and ice. Hah! More fool them! They couldn’t do enough damage to make it look like it’d really been us. Which,” Kirche coughed, “we admittedly only noticed after I’d given her two black eyes and she’d stabbed me in the hand and I’d set her hair on fire and she’d ruined my clothes with a razor icestorm.”  
  
Danny frowned. “You didn’t kill her?” she asked.  
  
“Look, Tabitha is _really good_ at what she does,” Kirche said bluntly. “She had the upper hand. If we ever were seriously trying to kill each other, I’d give her seven out of ten fights.”  
  
“Oh. Goodness. I thought you were the best.”  
  
“I am the best,” Kirche said arrogantly. “It’s just… well, she’s better against mages. She’s incredibly fast. And never fights fair.” Kirche flicked her hair. “Anyway, once we made up and… you know, stopped bleeding, we went and beat them into the infirmary and then out of the window of the infirmary and then set their rooms on fire-and-ice. At the same time.”  
  
“How?”  
  
“Wasn’t easy! Turns out you have to just use _more magic_.”  
  
Danny opened his eyes wide, and then slumped. “Sometimes I think I’ll never be as powerful as you,” he said sadly. “I’m twelve and I’m still line rank. And you’d already done so much more than me when you were my age.”  
  
Kirche squeezed his shoulder sympathetically. “It’s no big deal if you’re not,” she said. “I’m just a prodigy – and Dad’s first legitimate child and his heir. I have to be the best. You’re right, he put more time into training me. But – well, look at Guiche. He’s a dot-rank, and he still pulls his weight when we go out heroing. I mean, obviously not when we have to wipe out warbands. That’s mostly just me and Tabby. But he’s good at other things. Like talking to people.”  
  
“Mmm hmm. H-he’s really nice,” Danny said, blushing pinkly. “He… he took me out adventuring and… and we talked about being boys and… and marriages and doing the right thing for your family even if you won’t want to and…” Danny’s shoulders hunched. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “He’s not much like Dad, but…”  
  
Kirche gave her little brother a cuddle. “There, there,” she said. “Trust me. Dad’s unique. You can’t judge most people by him. Which is just as well, really. If Dad thought there was someone out there just like him, they’d probably fight in a duel to the mutual death.”  
  
“Ah…”  
  
“Or possibly start making out,” Kirche continued in the same tone of voice.  
  
“Eww.”  
  
“Look, Dad loves himself more than anything else in the world.”  
  
“Yes, but did you need to bring up that mental image?”  
  
Kirche shrugged. “Meh.”  
  
“You’re disgusting.”  
  
“Now you sound like Monmon,” Kirche said, sounding hurt. “That’s no way to talk to your older sister.”  
  
“You _are_ disgusting, though!”  
  
Kirche poked Danny in the shoulder. “Oh, you say that now, but maybe you’ll change your mind when you’re older. A little bit of disgustingness is a lot of fun, take it from me.”  
  
“Look, Kirche!” Danny exploded, “I… I know you like being a girl! I… I don’t understand _why_ you like it, but you do! I… you’re my big sister, fine! You do… do girly things and like it! And show off your body and like h-h-having these _stupid_ things growing on your chest,” he crossed his arms protectively, “and… and… and I don’t! I hate it! I’ve always hated it!” He gasped down big gulps of air. “And… and if things feel as wrong for you when you dress like a boy as it felt when Mama tried to get me to wear a dress, then that’s horrible!”  
  
Kirche raised a hand. “Don’t worry there,” she said, frowning. “Honestly, I just dress how I want. Apart from the corset. That’s a pain in the back. Also, the front. And the sides. But breeches are pretty handy when you have to run in winter. I just dress in what I find comfortable for me.” She sighed. “That bad?”  
  
Danny slumped down. “Worse,” he said in a tiny voice. “It’s… it’s getting worse. I… I don’t _want_ to have hips or… or breasts. I don’t _want_ to become a woman. If… if I have to be… why couldn’t things stay like they used to? Where no one c-c-could tell the difference?” He took another gulp of air. “Guiche… Guiche is nice. He doesn’t say anything. But… but I’m sure other people are noticing and I hate it! I hate it!”  
  
Kirche for her part was still fifty-fifty on whether Guiche had actually noticed anything, but made the mental note to check and do something nice for him if he had. Actually, she should do something nice for him anyway, for taking her little brother out on a supervised adventure.  
  
She sat down on the edge of the crater, letting her legs dangle down, and pulled her brother into a hug. “There, there,” she said, trying to think of anything more she could say.  
  
Danny sunk into her, shoulders shaking with suppressed tears.  
  
She gave him a cuddle. “Tell you what. We’re going to have to go to Roma next. The Church has to know about this event, and we’re famous enough to actually make them listen. I think we can talk ourselves into getting an audience with the pope – after all, he knows us from when we saved the Romalian ambassador to Tristain. We’ll make sure we tell him personally. And while we’re there, there’s a woman I know who helped me out when I was a bit older than you. She makes useful little things on commission.”  
  
“I don’t need another hidden boot dagger,” Danny muttered.  
  
“Really? I think you can never have too many. But I was talking about false moustaches and things that stop unwanted bouncing. She makes the moustaches from your own hair, you know. They’re excellent. You’d like that?”  
  
“’es.”  
  
“Then it’s settled.”  
  
Danny swallowed. “You… thank you, Kirche.”  
  
Kirche hugged him again. “You’re my brother, got it? You’re family. Family sticks together.”  
  
She paused.  
  
“Apart from evil bastard half-siblings,” she added conscientiously. “They mostly try to stick it between our ribs. But if they stopped trying to murder us, I’d be willing to extend the offer to them too.”


	49. Proper Gander 10-1

_“Stop! Stop, you poor fools! Yes, he may be an orc! But does he not feel? Does he not care? Does he not weep over his lost loved ones? And can he not know salvation? I say that he can, and it is our deeds and not our manner of birth which determines who we are and what we shall be. If he would creep in the shadows and try to listen to the words of Brimir, than I shall minister to him personally. For all men can be saved by the grace of the Lord and the Founder– even if those men happen to be orcs!”_  
  
–  Pope Obteneratus I, ‘On the Salvation of All Things Whether Low Or High’

* * *

The firelight flickered, casting long shadows against the walls of the grand hall of the overlady. Dark red banners and draperies hung from the ceiling. A demon, a vampire and a necromancer had gathered here to listen to the pronouncements of their dark leader.  
  
“Ladies. We have a problem,” the overlady said, stroking the white cat on her lap.  
  
“I’ll say so,” said Princess Henrietta, who was attending in her full skull-covered ensemble. “My… my kingdom is in the hands of someone possessed by some manner of demon or something.” She slammed her bone-decorated gauntlets together. “This is completely unacceptable! That hasn’t happened since… since… since my mother was possessed! But that didn’t really count because the Duchess de la Vallière punched her out as soon as she noticed and then threw her in a holy font! And there were at least three generations without any demonic possessions before that! Well, two and a half.”  
  
“Didn’t Mother break the queen’s nose?” Cattleya asked.  
  
“Well, yes, but better a broken nose than demonic possession.” Henrietta adjusted herself. “Anyway, my mother probably had it coming for being the worst mother ever,” she added sullenly.  
  
“Quite so,” Louise agreed, silently only agreeing with the first part. She shifted uncomfortably, wishing that she hadn’t worn her armour for this. Her body was aching all over, even if Henrietta’s magical and not-necromantic help had alleviated the worst of the bruises. She had one on her… her posterior that she hadn’t wanted to show to her, and it was sore despite the extra cushions she was sitting on. “This isn’t what I want. For one, I can’t very well get revenge on the Madame de Montespan for being a… a wanton harlot and a female cur and many other things if she’s not herself! However!” She clapped her hands together. “I am not a fool. I do not rush in without thinking.”  
  
“Well, that’s not quite true,” her elder sister began.  
  
“Shut up, Catt! I don’t rush in without thinking _anymore_. Much. That often.” The overlady cleared her throat, tickling Pallas’ belly. “Now, ladies, we find ourselves in the position that we may well be the only people who know that the Madame de Montespan is possessed. I had considered informing the Church, but – how should I put it?”  
  
“They probably won’t believe a demon, a vampire, a necromancer and an evil overlady,” Jessica said helpfully.  
  
“A blunt way of putting it, but accurate,” Louise said, giving her cat a tickle under the chin. Pallas swatted idly at the tassels hanging from the overlady’s surcoat, giving them a good gnawing whenever it managed to catch one. “From what we know, she’s a servant of the dark god Athe. Now, Jessica. Why don’t you tell me more about him?”  
  
Cattleya pouted. “Hey! My cult worships him as one of their gods! Louise! I’m hurt you’re not asking me.”  
  
“I just thought that a demon might have better insight than a cultist,” Louise said hastily. “Right, Jessica?”  
  
“Uh… I dunno. I mean, I didn’t study theology at college. It’s only weirdos who do that sort of thing. You know, people who go to those diploma mills run by a dark god or a demon prince.”  
  
Louise glared at her for that betrayal. “And of course we’ll need to consider the ramifications of acting against a dark god. We don’t want to risk uniting the forces of the Abyss against us.”  
  
“Nah,” Jessica said, flapping her hand. “Like that’d matter. It’s totally Evil to screw over another Evil guy who’s getting in the way of your revenge. No one will object.”  
  
“Well, that is excellent…”  
  
“Of course, Athe’ll like totally object because… well, it is his plan you’re fucking up. Well, probably. He’s a bit unpredictable. He’s a dark god, rather than a demon, so he’s a bit… nouveau riche. Also you know, not too popular in the Abyss ‘cause, well, most demons get a bit sick of immigrants who tried to get in claiming that they’re being persecuted in Heaven and stuff like that. I mean, sure, he’ll have backing from the migrant community, but there’s a lot of people who’d rather see the back of him.”  
  
Louise had not known. “I’m sorry,” she began. “But I seem to be lacking some critical information. You say he’s a dark god, rather than a demon? What’s the difference?”  
  
Jessica looked at the expectant faces of the other women in the room. “Oh crap. Did you not know?”  
  
“Nope,” Cattleya said brightly.  
  
“No,” Louise said.  
  
“It’s all a bit fuzzy to me,” Henrietta said, frowning.  
  
“Don’t mind me,” Gnarl added, sitting in the corner and eating beetles by the handful. No one had seen him come in.  
  
“Okay, I’ll lay it pretty simply. Demons come from the Abyss. Well, okay, so do a bunch of dark angels and stuff, but that’s because they were born there and… let me start again. Angels come from Heaven, demons come from the Abyss. Yeah?”  
  
“Mraa,” agreed Pallas, demanding a tummy-tickle.  
  
“That all seems theologically accurate,” Louise said after some thought and some tickling.  
  
“Okay. Right. So when an angel realises that it’s way more fun being Evil, Heaven kicks them out or they have to flee before Heaven arrests them or kills them for, you know, being Evil. So most of them wind up applying for asylum in the Abyss.”  
  
“They apply to be locked up because they’re crazy?” Henrietta asked. “But you said they were fleeing imprisonment in Heaven.”  
  
Jessica opened her mouth. Jessica closed her mouth. “They run away to the Abyss, okay?” she tried again. “So they’ve been doing that for a long time, so there’s lots of dark angels who were born in the Abyss – like Garz, Garzeniel… look, she was someone from prep school who I was friends with before she wound up as one of Izah’belya’s cronies and… okay. ‘Demons’ equals come from the Abyss. ‘Dark angels’ equals originally from heaven, become evil, cast down into the Abyss, sometimes they have kids so there are third generation angels who you can barely tell from demons… well, apart from the accent.”  
  
“Mmm hmm.” Louise blinked. “The accent?”  
  
“Did you know, some people say that originally demons came from Heaven too? That’s why the Dark Tongue and the Light Tongue are basically the same. Only, like, we rebelled and got our freedom to do whatever we wanted without their rules in the way. And anyway Heaven was stopping us invading the Underworld just because they’d signed peace treaties with them! So unfair!”  
  
“And dark gods?” Louise asked, trying to keep on top of the topic and also ignore Jessica’s casual blasphemy. Although everyone knew that demons had been cast out, so perhaps they thought they’d been rebelling when they’d actually been exiled for treason.  
  
“Uh… like, I’m not 100% sure on the difference between angels and gods, right? I think it’s the difference between… like, lower class demons like imps and demon lords. Like, my demon side is way, way more powerful than just about anything down there. A god’s sort of like that relative to angels. But don’t quote me on it. I didn’t take those modules at college.”  
  
Louise looked at Henrietta. Henrietta looked back at her. They both looked at Cattleya. Cattleya looked at Louise. Cattleya looked at Henrietta. They both wondered who was going to speak first.  
  
“Um. There’s only one god,” Cattleya, who had lost the glance-off, said warily. “Well, one good god, that is. There are lots of dark gods, but they’re just demonic forces of malice.”  
  
Jessica sighed. “Okay, like, there’s like no way I’m getting into a religious argument with you. Let’s just agree to disagree, right?”  
  
Henrietta leaned forwards, a curious expression on her face. “Actually, on that note, who _do_ you worship, Jessica? There won’t be any problems because Athe owns your soul or something akin to that?”  
  
Jessica laughed. “Hell no. There’s no way I’d worship a dried up stick like that.”  
  
“He was quite nice when we talked,” Cattleya said, sounding mildly hurt. “He likes my sketches.”  
  
“I guess I’m meant to technically worship Dad and my grandad,” she continued, ignoring Cattleya, “but… well, Dad doesn’t insist, and the King of Hell is trapped even worse than Dad so isn’t in any position to benefit from it. My aunt insists all her daughters worship her and grant her a percentage of everything they take, though. Serves them right. Oh.” Jessica frowned. “I guess my mother did that ritual with me with the candle and the fan and the earth and the water bath, though.”  
  
“You were consecrated?” asked Louise harshly. If she had gone through the ritual, then…  
  
“Yeah, that thing. So I think I’m also technically a Brimirian.”  
  
Louise decided to ignore that, because if Jessica was one that would make her an apostate and then Louise wouldn’t be allowed to talk to her. Anyway, the consecration of demons was theologically shaky, even compared to things like orcs and dragons. So it might not have even counted even if it had really happened. Which it might not have.  
  
She sighed. That left her with one real source for acquiring need-to-know information. “So,” Louise stated, “Cattleya, I am going to come with you to your meeting of the cult. I need to find out more about Athe.”  
  
At least she’d get to see Magdalene again.

* * *

There were setbacks, of course. For example, Pallas objected strenuously to Louise’s attempts to leave her behind.  
  
“Let me go, you stupid cat! Get out of my robe!”  
  
Fortunately, an equitable resolution to the conflict was found where Pallas got to lie around Louise’s neck like a feline feather boa and in return Louise was not viciously clawed by a cat. The overlady didn’t feel it was a very equitable resolution, but that was just sour grapes on her part.  
  
“Mraaaaaaa!” Pallas said smugly, rubbing her soft furry cheek against Louise’s.  
  
“Vicious and cruel cunning monster,” Louise muttered.  
  
Pallas nuzzled her ear, purring.  
  
Still, despite all that the evening was going well. Mostly. Well from her point of view, at least. One of the cultists managed to trip over the hem of her robe and knock the black candles onto the sacrificial altar they had been setting up. The unholy oil had gone up in flames and Magdalene had been very sarcastic about how the ritual was utterly ruined. But that wasn’t Louise’s problem, since the eighty-three centiEleanores of mean comments hadn’t been directed at her.  
  
So rather than attempting to evoke an aspect of an abyssal deity, the cult of noblewomen were instead sitting around in comfortable armchairs, drinking wine, and gossiping. Magdalene had tried to open a discussion on a philosophy book that she had just read, but no one really seemed to be bothered. Not when they were busy discussing the events in Amstreldamme, at least.  
  
And _that_ was very interesting. Very interesting indeed.  
  
“Do you mean, the madame de Montespan used to be part of this group?” Louise asked, eyes widening.  
  
“Oh, no, that was a different group,” Comtesse Jacqueline van Rien said cheerfully. “Wasn’t that when we were the Ebon Sisterhood of the Lethean Depths?”  
  
“Weren’t we the Umbral Widows of the Spider-Goddess Ruhb’rta?”  
  
“No, no, that was earlier. I think we were the Red-Handed Sorority at the time,” another one contributed.  
  
“Oh goodne… badness, yes!” Jacqueline said. “I’d tried to forget that! It was always such a pain getting the animal blood off your hands. Black cockerels bleed everywhere!”  
  
The disguised Henrietta frowned. “Do you… swap dark gods all the time?” she asked.  
  
Jessica chuckled. She was here as a demon, although that mostly meant that she had unfolded her wings and was wearing something made of liquid shadow which Louise considered utterly scandalous. Worse, several of the cult had already expressed interest in commissioning something from her. “Well, that’s the sensible thing to do. Not many mortals are bright enough to realise you get the best interest rates on infernal investments if you make sure to change your provider frequently and never get locked into a long-term contract.”  
  
There was a popping as Lady Magdalene roused herself from her sulk and cracked her knuckles. “Yes. Because those people are literally idiots. Some people don’t even read the small print! Idiots, all of them!” She glared at Jacqueline. Something about her seemed distracted, though. It was as if she was just going through the motions. “Very stupid. Fortunately I’m here to bring some much-needed _not being an idiot_ to us.”  
  
“But it seemed like such a good deal,” the Comtesse van Rien protested.  
  
“Idiot.”  
  
The comtesse’s lip wobbled. “Y-you’re being mean,” she tried. “It was just a little mistake!”  
  
“And you nearly sold your soul to Terreni the Absolutist. I think it is perfectly acceptable for me to direct ‘mean’ at you if it means you’ll remember just how stupid you were when you nearly-”  
  
“I beg your pardon,” Louise interrupted, not least because the other woman looked on the verge of tears, “but… are you saying that the Madame de Montespan would have known about Athe all along?”  
  
“Why, yes. Of course.”  
  
Louise waited for Magdalene to expand on the point, but she seemed remarkably reluctant to do so. “Well, why haven’t you used it against her?” she tried.  
  
“Because that would be entirely ill-mannered,” one of the other noblewomen muttered. “We _are_ sworn to secrecy, thank you very much. We are a black sisterhood and to betray one another would be…”  
  
“Evil?” Louise hinted.  
  
“Dreadfully gauche!”  
  
There was a burble of agreement.  
  
“Being evil is one thing, but bad manners are totally different!”  
  
“We worship respectable dark gods here, thank you very much!”  
  
“Only ill-bred people would go around betraying each other!”  
  
“And no one wants a repeat of the l'affaire des poisons! Poor Marie-Madeleine-Marguerite!”  
  
There was a hush. Somehow without moving everyone around the hapless Jacqueline was shuffling away from her.  
  
“I mean, no one wants to have an affair! That’d just be r-rude!” she tried to recover, but the general consensus was that she had gone and done it now.  
  
There was, however, no explosion of meanness from Lady Magdalene. She just sat there tight-lipped. This seemed to shock everyone, most of all Jacqueline.  
  
“Um. Mag? This is usually the bit where you shout at me,” she tried. “Do you have a fever? Because I can get some honey-and-lemon for you… ooh, and I heard that garlic is good for-”  
  
“What’s the point?” Magdalene said softly, shoulders slumped over. “Nothing changes. We’re just playing dress-up in black robes. We can’t even do a proper ritual without spoiling it.” She twitched back her black hood, and rose to her feet. “I need some fresh air,” she said, voice brittle. “Pray excuse me, ladies. No doubt you can find some way to entertain yourself without me.”  
  
And with that said, she swept out. A little bit of Louise was in awe at how good she was at that. Louise had tried to sweep out of a room like that before, but it always seemed to turn into a storming out. Magdalene had the height to pull it off.  
  
A shocked silence resulted.  
  
“… she didn’t shout at Jacqueline.”  
  
“I do hope she’s not ill.”  
  
“Oh, she’s probably just saving up something mean to say. More wine, anyone?”  
  
“Um,” said Louise. “So.” She got to her feet, Pallas protesting slightly from being woken. “I think I’ll just go and see if she’s okay,” she said as she left.  
  
“It’s your funeral when she bites your head off,” one of the other women muttered.  
  
“Oh, Magdalene,” Maria de Anoun said, shaking her head sadly. She was sitting very close to Cattleya, to the extent that their chairs had essentially fused into one long bench. No one was being so rude as to mention that Maria was looking a little pale and wearing a high-collared gown under her robe. “Another tantrum? Really? Grow up.”  
  
“Now that’s not very nice,” Jacqueline reprimanded her.  
  
“Jacqui, she’s constantly nasty to you. She bullies you.”  
  
Jacqueline flapped a hand whimsically. “Not really. She’s just a bit bossy. And she says some mean things, but she’s just not good at showing how much she cares. After all, she puts lots of effort into organising this! Far more than any of us do. I don’t think we appreciate how much work she does sometimes.”  
  
“You always stick up for her! When she constantly calls you an idiot!”  
  
“I just don’t like to see people upset,” Jacqueline said placidly. “And she’s usually right about the whole… you know, abyssal cult sort of thing. She’s always been smarter than me, ever since school. It’s why she’s high priestess. Well, when we have a high priestess. Anark doesn’t like them, but I think they make everything better. Um, worse. But it’s just more comfortable when we have a high priestess. It’s like being in church, only not.” She reached over and patted Maria on the hand. “Just you wait. She’s probably just worrying herself sleepless again over trying to find a new dark god or demon lord. She always gets tetchy when that happens.”  
  
Henrietta shifted in her seat. “I’m dreadfully sorry,” she said, “but I seem to be missing something. What was l'affaire des poisons? I’ve heard it mentioned a few times, but no one wanted to explain it to me.”  
  
“Well… uh. It’s not that we don’t like to talk about it…”  
  
“… no, it’s exactly that. We don’t like to talk about it.” Maria looked around. “Who’s got the wine? Let’s drink to the fact that we haven’t had any more accidents with love potions since!”  
  
“Didn’t you-”  
  
“We haven’t had any more accidents with love potions since,” Maria repeated firmly.  
  
“Hear hear!”

* * *

The dark angel Baelogji stared up at the bedroom ceiling with the eyes of the Madame de Montespan. These eyes were rather unfocussed and slightly crossed, despite her best efforts to make the body work properly.  
  
She was… she was just a little distracted right now. Yes. Just a little distracted. She listened to the quiet breathing of the man lying next to her.  
  
Oh _my_.  
  
That had been… intense. Of course, it wasn’t like she was some kind of fainting virgin. She’d been married twice – although of course her first marriage had been to an angel which meant it had been very chaste and sexless and he had been more interested in his rare book collection anyway. But after she was cast out from heaven, she’d married a demon lord to help secure her position.  
  
It hadn’t been the same. While of course the Abyss was vastly superior to Heaven, what with the rejection of petty morality and full reign for her to unleash her genius with flesh and the way there weren’t sneering _censors_ telling her that her ideas for a creature which was part duck and part beaver was ridiculous…  
  
… in many ways it was a loveless place. Lustful, but loveless. She had been a trophy for her husband, a prize that he could brag about, a ‘newly fallen angel’ that he had ‘personally corrupted’. She had never loved him. Later, she had hated him.  
  
At least she had been left all his lands in his will when he mysteriously was devoured by mutated hell-beasts that had paralysed him with venom and then eaten him alive, starting with the feet. The Abyssal coroners had decided it was a death by natural causes, because it was natural to die when one was eaten alive by hell-beasts. She had been quite relieved to get away with that. While murder was in no way illegal in the Abyss, the Succubus Queen in her position of regent of Hell had passed laws stating that anyone sloppy enough to get caught couldn’t inherit.  
  
She took a deep breath. She had to calm herself. She had to centre herself. This was all the fault of the memories of the Madame de Montespan’s soul. She’d had to tap it for memories and now it was screaming in the back of her head for daring to sleep with her beloved.  
  
Shut up, she mentally hissed at it.  
  
“How dare you! I will never forgive you! Never! Y-you defiled him! With your demonic l-lures and…”  
  
Baelogi tuned her out again. Oh, she was going to enjoy tormenting her when she got out of this filthy human body. This degenerate, pathetic, wingless human body. And she couldn’t even improve it! There were so many ways she could make it _better_. Sharper teeth. More eyes. A hardened carapace. A redesigned respiratory system. But oh no, she had to look disgustingly human. And not even any human! This one! This disgustingly petite human. It was vile how much she had to fold herself down to fit in here. Intolerable. Quite intolerable.  
  
She would have to use her position to find some short humans and make… improvements. It would help her de-stress. At least she’d have access to plenty of test subjects here.  
  
Swinging her legs out of bed, she stood up. Or tried to. She was just a little weak at the knees right now. The wall turned out to be a handy way of supporting herself, thank wickedness. The stone was painfully rough and she was feeling too cold. But even though the human world was painfully cold, she… she just had to get away from the sleeping Wardes. It strengthened Françoise-Athénaïs’ spirit, somehow.  
  
There was something seriously wrong with this woman. No human should feel this… this intensely! She looked over at the man and it felt like the bottom dropped out of her stomach. Looking away resolutely, she crossed her arms and thought of all the many design flaws in the human body that should have been fixed long ago before the propositions had bogged down in Heavenly committees.  
  
That was it. She felt better. Just a momentary weakness. That was all. She… she just had to get used to handling a human’s sensory input. And then she’d spend a few hours tomorrow torturing Montespan back into compliance. So she’d stop bleeding _feelings_ into her mind.  
  
The possessed woman gazed out of the window over the smoky night of Amstreldamme. The cool night breeze picked up and she fell over with a muffled scream, feeling colder than she’d ever felt even in the depths of the Abyssal winter.  
  
Stupid human bodies feeling cold! Why didn’t they have a proper insulating layer of blubber?

* * *

Carefully, Louise picked her way through the country home. She had been assured by the cultists that they’d made sure the servants were out of the way – and Louise believed them, because the food suffered for it – but this just made the household a cold empty place.  
  
Honestly, she’d probably have worried more if she hadn’t been living in a ruined abandoned evil tower for over a year. After a certain point she’d got a bit inured to mild amounts of creepiness.  
  
“Mrraaa,” observed Pallas, jumping down off her shoulder and pacing ahead. Brushing some stray white cat hair off her shoulder, Louise followed her cat.  
  
A sound of distant sniffling reached her ears. Carefully Louise turned a corner and found the library. In her considered opinion, it wasn’t a very good library. It was rather small. Poking her head down one of the aisles, she found Magdalene curled up on a chair, her head resting on her knees. She lifted her face at the sound of approaching footsteps. Her eyes were mostly obscured by her reflective reading spectacles. They glinted in the dim light as Louise came to a halt in front of her.  
  
“Oh. It’s you,” the older woman said. Pallas leapt up onto her chair, and gently patted her hand until Magdalene picked her up.  
  
“Yes. Are… are you feeling all right?” Louise tried, and then changed her mind. “Wait, no, that’s a stupid thing to say given that-”  
  
“Why do I even bother?” Magdalene muttered, turning a despairing gaze on the overlady.  
  
“I beg your pardon?”  
  
“Why do I even bother? What do I get from this?” Magdalene sighed, slumping down. Her generous blood-red lips wobbled as she petted Pallas. “It wasn’t meant to be like this. I just wanted to get the best and brightest women in Tristainian society together so… so I could have some _darn_ intelligent conversation and maybe become a secret conspiracy with our hands around the throat of the aristocracy! I wanted to be the power behind the throne! Is that so wrong?”  
  
Louise considered the question. “Um. Yes?” she hazarded. Pallas climbed down and rubbed against Louise’s leg, mewing.  
  
“Exactly! We were going to do it properly! We were going to treat the powers of the Abyss as things to exploit! We weren’t going to get locked into anything which would leave us trapped! I… I… I had it all planned out!” She blew her nose loudly into a black silk handkerchief. “And look at how it turned out! They’re… they’re not even really interested in… in…”  
  
Magdalene’s words were lost in the burble. Louise considered her next course of action. On one hand, she really shouldn’t be comforting someone whose self-proclaimed goals had been to take over Tristain through an evil conspiracy. But on the other hand, she _liked_ Magdalene. Maybe it was the shared de la Vallière heritage, but they seemed to get on well. And considering that the reason she was upset was that it hadn’t worked, that made it less bad, right?  
  
“There, there,” she said, pulling the older woman up into a hug. Immediately she realised her mistake. With the difference in height between the two of them – not to mention the difference in build – Magdalene was putting more weight on her than she had expected. “What’s the problem with how things are right now, hmm?”  
  
Magdalene sniffed. She took off her spectacles, and rubbed her red-rimmed eyes. “No one here wants to really take over the country,” she mumbled. “Oh, they say they do, but they spend all their times gossiping and drinking wine and complaining about their husbands. And… and… and when I set this up, none of us wanted to be married off, but a l-l-lot of them seem to have n-nicer husbands than me! They… they say it’s not so bad. J-J-Jacqueline s-seems to actually… to actually l-love her h-husband. And her children!”  
  
“Um,” Louise said, quite aware of her lack of experience in the fields of romance. “I suppose they’re just trying to make the best of the situation.” She was aware that her own parents had married for love and so were relatively liberal compared to most other nobles – while they had arranged a marriage for her, they had made quite clear that it was not until she was older and that they would break it off if she hadn’t wanted it. She was lucky, apart from the whole bit where her fiancé had been a cheating treacherous weasel-dog who she was going to murder in cold blood for what he’d done. “But from what you said, your husband is a brute, so… um. I suppose that’s not an option for you?”  
  
“Y-you can say that again,” Magdalene said softly. “I hate him so much. Especially when he’s drunk. I never w-want to have his child. Ever! Ever ever ever! I c-can’t let someone else turn out like him!” She locked eyes with Louise. “But… but I don’t know if the potions failed or I forgot to take it one day or… or what, but I’m… I’m pregnant.”  
  
Louise really wasn’t sure what to say here. ‘Congratulations’ seemed very tasteless. She glanced down at Magdalene’s unfairly narrow waistline. “It must be recent. You’re not showing.” Inside, she was surprised to find just how intensely she was seething. She _liked_ Magdalene. They’d only met recently, but she was clever, cunning, and… and it made her blood boil at the way this woman who was normally so confident was reduced to this. She understood her, too. She knew how it felt so be so acutely lonely. She’d lived through it at school. Magdalene was stuck in a loveless marriage with few friends, and this cult seemed to be one of her few escapes. She wanted power and control because she had so little in her normal life.  
  
The other woman nodded. “About two months,” she said, swallowing. “I only found out recently. After… after what we did in Amstreldamme. H-he doesn’t know yet. And… and I don’t know what to do.”  
  
Narrowing her eyes, Louise’s mind whirled. Something behind her eyes clicked. Carefully and staggering a little under the weight, she maneuvered Magdalene to a seat. Pallas made things harder by twining between her legs as she went to get another chair. “I really am sorry,” she said softly, as she settled herself down.  
  
“So am I. I never w-wanted this marriage. But… but my family needed it.” She held her head in her hands. “I nearly ran away. I didn’t. Too… too much of a coward. I wanted to run away and… and… and something. I didn’t know what I’d do. Or who I’d go to.” She sighed. “I… I don’t know how much more of it I can take,” she said in a quiet little voice.  
  
Louise made a decision there that if her next plan didn’t work, she’d invite Magdalene to her tower of misfit noble ladies. A cult priestess would fit right in. And – she checked her own feelings – yes, it wasn’t because she was attracted to the woman at all. That was a relief. It was only Princess Henrietta who got her feeling in a fluster, probably because of her de la Vallière blood getting confused with what you did with captured princesses. “Well, a few questions, if I may?” she asked primly.  
  
The other woman nodded.  
  
“You said your husband likes to hunt, yes?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“What does he like to hunt?”  
  
“Anything that moves on two legs or four. Or six. Or eight.”  
  
That wasn’t very useful in narrowing things down. “So… hypothetically, does he ever hunt wolves?”  
  
“Oh yes,” Magdalene said bitterly. “In fact, he’ll go as far as to have them captured in Germania and transported to Amstreldamme so he has something to chase. There aren’t any that live normally down on the flats.”  
  
“Wonderful,” Louise said with a tight smile.  
  
“Wonderful?”  
  
“I believe I may be able to organise a hunting accident for him.” This bit was very easy, Louise found. She just had to pretend that Magdalene’s husband was Wardes.  
  
“You’re going to kill him?” Madgalene asked, looking up. Her eyes were fiercely gleaming, and her teeth were bared.  
  
“No.”  
  
The other woman immediately slumped down.  
  
“Be sensible,” Louise said, leaning in. “You don’t want him dead. Not until the child is born. Or at least until you’re visibly and undeniably showing, as per canon law. Because as long as you ‘ve had his child, or at the very least you can swear before two priests that it is his child you’re pregnant with… well, then if he happens to succumb to his injuries, his estates will remain in your hands.”  
  
Magdalene glared back. “I don’t want this,” she growled. “I don’t want to have his… his _spawn_ or… or… or have to put up with him any more!”  
  
Louise thought fast. “What better revenge could you have than raising his child to be… uh, an actually intelligent human being?” she asked, making things up on the spot. “From what you say, he’d hate it more than anything else in the world if you went and raised his child to like reading and hate hunting.”  
  
“… that is true.”  
  
“And not just that. If he should oh-so-tragically die and the lands pass to you, you’ll be a significant landowner,” the overlady continued, honeyed words flowing like she had actually planned them. Gosh. This was remarkably easy. Shockingly so, really. “You won’t be a widow who’ll be kicked out penniless when the lands go back to the next heir. Because you’ll be the mother of that heir.”  
  
“But… I… I don’t…” The other woman sighed. “Void damn you,” she muttered. “Stop making sense.”  
  
“Thank you. So I think I can arrange a hunting accident for him. It’d probably be safer once it’s known you’re pregnant,” Louise said, recalling sections from Gnarl’s books on political assassinations. Things were going better than expected! She wasn’t stammering at all! “He’ll be bed-ridden and probably almost certainly not dead, but we should consider the risk of my asset… um, hitting him too hard.”  
  
“That’s something I can face with equi… good cheer,” Magdalane said, sniffling. She seemed to be coming around. On the other hand, Louise was fairly sure that Pallas was glaring at her. She made a mental note to find her something to eat. “But I do have one question.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Why are you doing this for me?”  
  
“Because I need a spymistress,” Louise said. She hadn’t been thinking of Magdalene this way before the meeting, but it just made sense. She really did need someone to keep track of what was happening in society. “She has to be intelligent, able to organise things, and know how to gather rumours. She has to be a woman of independent means whose presence at the most important parties in the country won’t be questioned – so _both_ of us benefit if your husband is dead.” She smiled. “I know you can outwit dark gods and cheat demons with contracts. Humans should be easier, right?”  
  
Yes, that was quite a good little speech Louise thought smugly. No doubt Magdalene would be instantly impressed by her overwhelming logic and-  
  
“Why else?” Magdalene paused. “Because… um. There are certain rumours about you and… well, you do go around in rather mannish armour.”  
  
Louise felt a blush coming as her treacherous face betrayed her. Stupid face. “Oh, for goodness sake! I wear lots of armour because I really, really don’t want to get hurt! I don’t think Karin of the Heavy Wind had to ever deal with these constant… constant implications and baseless rumours about her… her… her bedroom proclivities!”  
  
“I was just asking if you were a Protestant,” Magdalene said, looking hurt. “What did you think I was talking about?”  
  
The ground did not break wide open and swallow Louise whole. Stupid useless ground. “I’m n-not Protestant,” she stammered out, face on fire.  
  
“… oh. I see. Hah. I see what you thought I was talking about.” The other woman sniffed, and forced a smile. “Well, it’s funny you should mention the Duchess de la Vallière in _that_ context. There are those rumours about what she got up to when she was younger with Princess Marianne. Apparently the Queen when she was younger was _very_ fond of her knight.”  
  
Louise froze like a tiny cute thing in the face of something large, fast-moving and heavy charging directly at her. She couldn’t say a thing. She mustn’t. She didn’t want to hear this! She didn’t! She didn’t!  
  
“Founder, I remember Eleanore de la Vallière used to explode like a bombard when someone brought some of those old tales up. So of course people did it whenever they wanted to get a rise out of her at school.”  
  
At this moment of time, Louise felt she could understand properly for the first time ever the precise reason her big sister was the unit of meanness. “I never heard those tales,” she muttered into her hands. At some point she’d covered her hands with her face. She could feel her blush through her armoured glove. She was probably glowing.  
  
“Well, they’re old rumours. They died down when she got married and there wasn’t any of the typical signs shown by someone who married into the de la Vallière family. You know, a fondness for torture, gathering a harem of slaves from the Far East, unleashing your undead hordes to devour the von Zerbsts… the usual.”  
  
Oh. Phew. Just a rumour. Louise breathed a sigh of relief and silently wished for her flaming cheeks to die down again. “They are quite a wicked family,” she said, trying to sound neutral. “Though from what I have heard Eleanore is just mean.”  
  
“She is very mean,” Magdalene agreed, adding dryly, “Roughly a quarter again as mean as I am, if you were to ask some of the others. But then again, I am related to that family. Apparently it shows.”  
  
Louise looked at the other woman, with her long straight black hair, her generous figure and the way the light seemed to fall so most of her save for her eyes and her reflective spectacles were in shadow.  
  
“Gosh,” she said. “I’d never have guessed.”

* * *

“Quite the interesting decision, your dark imperiousness,” Gnarl said happily, stroking his goatee. The torchlight flickered on the walls within Louise’s workroom, as she idly flicked through a book on soul-alchemy. “I had been considering advising you to find yourself a spymaster, but it seems that you have entirely pre-empted me.”  
  
Louise swallowed. “Yes. Of course. I was thinking that I needed someone in more mainstream society, who might be able to notice things like Montespan’s plot before it occurs and give me time to prepare,” she said, feeling proud of the post-facto justification she had come up with on the way back.  
  
Because of course that hadn’t been her real reason. Quite a lot of it had been because she felt sorry for Magdalene – and liked her. But there had been another reason, too.  
  
“But of course, you had another reason. Didn’t you, your evilness?” Gnarl asked, once again showing his uncanny capacity to possibly read her mind. She really needed to be more worried about that.  
  
“Yes,” she said, with a fake sigh. “She knew something about Françoise-Athenais. Something very, very damning.” She tapped her fingers on the table. “I now know about l'affaire des poisons –and what she got involved with. It might have started as some stupid young women messing around with love potions, but… well. They’re all so stupid.”  
  
“Quite so,” Gnarl said, stroking his goatee. “Love potions are so ineffective. And lust potions, which are considerably cheaper are rather unreliable. Hate potions are much more useful as a tool of applied politics.”  
  
Not for what they’d wanted them for, Louise thought sullenly. “I have used neither,” she said coldly.  
  
“Oh, really? Well, your wickedness, I do happen to know a supplier of hate…”  
  
“That is not important, Gnarl!” Louise blazed. “What matters is that Athe is going to deny me of my revenge on Montespan! And I can’t destroy the Council without annoying him, so I’ll… I’ll… I’ll just have to destroy him too!” She brought her armoured gauntlet down on the table, sending papers scattering and waking her cat up from her nap.  
  
“Mraaaa!” protested Pallas.  
  
“The cat is quite right to object,” Gnarl said, wiry hands tightening over his walking stick. “Your wickedness, declaring war on a dark god is not something one should do without considerable forethought.”  
  
Louise pulled a face.  
  
“Your maliciousness,” Gnarl observed, “several previous overlords have attempted to declare war on the Abyss. It usually ends in their death. Or at least in their begging-for-death-but-the-demons-won’t-let-them-die.”  
  
The candles flickered ominously. Louise sighed. “You have a way with words,” she said bitterly.  
  
“Indeed, your darkness, I do. If you must remove Athe from your path, I would strongly advise that you not declare war on the entire Abyss nor try to overthrow a dark god.” Gnarl tilted his head. “Well, not unless you have a way to devour his heart and take up his power. That’s just normal Abyssal politics. No one will bat an eyelid at that.”  
  
“Tempting,” Louise lied, “but I think I must pass. I don’t want to be a dark god.”  
  
“Quite wrong, your wickedness. Several of your predecessors managed it and they always wound up murdered fairly shortly afterwards. It would not appear to be a wise career move.”  
  
The glow in Louise’s eyes intensified. “I understand your point,” she said tetchily. Brooding, she stared into the torches. It wasn’t fair! How dare a dark god get in her way! Not only was… was he obstructing her, he was theologically unsound as well! How dare he be dreadful like that!  
  
It wasn’t even as if other demons liked dark gods and fallen angels, if you trusted Jessica’s explanation. Hah.  
  
Wait.  
  
It wasn’t even as if demons liked dark gods and fallen angels.  
  
“Gnarl?”  
  
“Yes, your wickedness?”  
  
“Would demonkind find it offensive if I publically humiliated Athe?”  
  
“They would probably find it hilarious,” Gnarl said cheerfully. “I certainly would.”  
  
“So if I thwarted his plans and made sure all the other demons knew about it, it would not only stop him but also help me?”  
  
“Most probably. You have a plan, your maliciousness?”  
  
“I was in school. I know all about public humiliation.” Louise sat back. “Gnarl. Please prepare reports on the political situation in Cathay, the aims of its ruler, and his major adversaries both internal and external. And in addition, I wish reports on the major subordinates of Athe and their personal proclivities.” She folded her hands on her lap. “I will ruin the demon in Montespan’s body. Then I will destroy it. Then I will destroy Montespan.”  
  
“I like the sound of this. It sounds excessively malevolent,” the minion said, chuckling. “I will get to it, my lady.”  
  
“Oh, and Gnarl?” Louise said before he left. “Send for Cattleya, would you? She has an appointment with my spymistress’ husband.”


	50. Proper Gander 10-2

_“See, I’s know’n that them’ll’s sayin’ it were Germanian ban’it-lords that blew up the watchtower on th’border. They’s sayin’ that they had a dragon! Ha! I laughs at that! No dragon could do that! Dragonbreath can’t melt stone! No, I’s telling you that it was elves with one of their darn magical bombs! Tricksy elves are workin’ with the Gallians to start a war with Germania so the elvsies can come and dig up the bodies in graveyards and burn ‘em for fuel! That’s how elves keep warm in winter, y’know! Despoilin’ our corpses! That’s why I always wear a turnip slice ‘round my neck, so the elves don’t get me!”_  
  
–  Ol’ Phil, uneducated horse herder

* * *

The grand clock ticked away the seconds, its scythe-shaped pendulum cutting through the air. Upon the table, black-bound tomes of wicked magic were scattered around. There was a steel tray in the centre, upon which were secured two rats. One was dead, eviscerated with a sacrificial knife and the other was alive. Leaning over them was the crown princess of Tristain, holding aforementioned blood-wetted sacrificial knife.  
  
“… call upon your ceaseless sorrow, oh rat! Rise up! Live! Live!” Henrietta chanted. She gestured with the knife. “Let this blood-feast be your offering and let the crimson tide wash away the sorrows of the…” she turned the page, “… the profaned grave! Rise! Rise! Rise!”  
  
Black and pale blue light twirled in the palm of her free hand. With the other, she plunged the knife into the chest of the living rat. Something came shrieking out of its mouth, and was sucked into the ball of light, which turned a dark, bloody red. And then she pressed it against the eviscerated remains of the original dead rat.  
  
“Rise up!” she commanded. “Come! Rat! Shed the chains of death and live!”  
  
The deceased rat twitched a little bit. And then it stopped moving entirely. She waited expectantly for a while, but there were no other signs of life.  
  
“Drat,” Henrietta said sadly. No luck. It wasn’t very fair. All she was trying to do was to reach between the boundaries of life and death and bring back a rat. It just wasn’t working! The best she managed to get was barely more than you’d get if you shot lightning at a corpse, and after extensive testing the Church had declared that this was not a working means of unholy resurrection. And that it was therefore not a sin to shoot thunderbolts at dead bodies.  
  
Slumping down, Henrietta wiped specks of blood off her hands, dropping her bloodied knife onto the tray. She was useless. She… she obviously didn’t love Prince Cearl enough if she couldn’t even bring a rat back! Because if she couldn’t bring a rat back, she couldn’t bring him back and she’d be forever left with this aching hole in her heart! No other man could fill it. She knew this in the depths of her soul. She would be forever alone, deprived of the one she loved by the cruelty of usurpers.  
  
She wondered if Louise would be better at this. She doubted it. Surprisingly, despite the many and wicked things her family had got up to necromancy was one of the sins they committed less frequently. From what she had heard, the de la Vallière family seldom made good necromancers; barring of course the ones who were already among the living dead who were paragons of the art. It was joked that it was because they disliked shedding their own blood. The blood of others, yes. They shed that gleefully and in large amounts. But they didn’t like having to bleed themselves. The royal family was historically better at it. It was the same talent for water magic that ran in their veins, some said. Others said that the hallowed dead were laid down in the soil of Tristan, and so would always obey their liege-lords.  
  
So she’d just have to try again. Try again and again and again, until she got it right. No matter how many rats she had to gut. And when she had this down just pat, it would be so very fitting that the ones who murdered her love would be the ones who gave their lives to bring him back!  
  
Yes…  
  
“Princess Henrietta? Are you in here?” It was Louise-Françoise, wearing what was to Henrietta’s eyes an incredibly staid and conservative outfit. It barely acknowledged her position as a wicked overlady by being a black gown over a deep red petticoat. She really had to work with Jessica to get Louise-Françoise to expand her vision and stop dressing like an old woman, Henrietta considered. It just wasn’t fitting for a dark and malevolent force of Evil to be so... so prudish.  
  
“I’m here,” she replied, quickly covering up the tray and the bloodied contents with a cloth and sliding it under the table.  
  
“What are you doing? Light a few more candles, at least.”  
  
“Just a little reading.” Henrietta forced out a laugh. “I suppose I must not have noticed the other candles burning down.”  
  
“… what are you reading?” Louise asked suspiciously. “I mean, if you don’t mind telling.”  
  
“I’m trying to find anything useful about the dark angels of Athe. I haven’t had much success.”  
  
“Ah.” Louise shook her head. “Yes, I haven’t had much luck in my existing library. I ordered some new books in and I’ll let you look at them once I’m finished.”  
  
“That would be wonderful, Louise-Françoise! So, what brings you here?”  
  
Louise sniffed. “I smell blood.”  
  
“Cattleya was in here recently.”  
  
“Oh. I really need to talk to her about sticking to her diet.” Louise sat down on the other side of the table, got up again and found a cushion to sit on, and then sat down again. “We need to have a talk.”  
  
“We do? For what reason? I can’t think of anything in particular that we need to talk about for any reason whatsoever. Things are just fine,” Henrietta said quickly, slightly shriller and higher-pitched than she had perhaps intended.  
  
Louise stared flatly at her. “You don’t know what I’m trying to talk to you about because we haven’t talked about it yet,” she said, her voice slightly tart.  
  
“Oh. Right. Well, that is quite fine,” Henrietta said, trying not to sound too relieved. She rose, massaging her brow in a slightly exaggerated manner. “I have a headache from staring at these books in poor lighting. This way.” Dragging Louise through, they took up seats in a better-lit and not-at-all-near-any-sacrificed-rodents reading room. “Now, go on, my dear friend. Whatever is the matter?”  
  
The overlady settled her skirts, and clasped her pale hands together. “Now, you understand that it will be no small feat to cast down Françoise Athénaïs de Mortemart. To that end, I plan to-”  
  
“We could just kill her,” Henrietta suggested. “Get someone to stab her in the back. That would, I believe, manage it quite adequately.”  
  
“I’m not sure that would work, with that dark angel in her,” Louise reluctantly confessed. “Montespan is a highly skilled mistress of wards, and with that wicked spirit throwing its power behind her magic… well, I managed to break them, but it took everything I had. And that was before the dark angel truly unleashed its power.”  
  
“Yes, but what if we paid someone to slip into her bedroom and stick a poniard in her ear while she sleeps?” Henrietta frowned. “Or several poniards in all her vital organs. And perhaps we should poison them just in case.”  
  
Louise stared at her. “We’ll save that as a fallback plan,” she said after an uncomfortable pause. “I still don’t think it would work with a dark angel possessing her. Regardless!”  
  
“I’m sorry. I’ll hush.”  
  
“Thank you.” A lock of pink hair fell in front of Louise’s face, and she huffed it out of the way. “Now, as it stands, I don’t think I can defeat her on my own. She’s too powerful. That means I need to get that hell-spawn out of the way. And that means I need Athe out of the way. He’s a dark god.”  
  
“It is quite a conundrum.”  
  
“I know! However, I have a plan. I will need the assistance of Emperor Lee.”  
  
“Oh my! How scandalous!” Henrietta said, a wicked gleam in her eyes. “A political marriage! To one of the most eligible bachelors in the world!”  
  
“I’m not going to marry him!” Louise blurted out. “I mean I wouldn’t protest it, but… I would of course have a problem with it, but…”  
  
Henrietta laughed, her voice chiming. “Louise Françoise, you are adorable when you blush!” For some reason, this just deepened the blush. “I really must apologise for that. But are you courting him?”  
  
Louise squirmed under her gaze. “Well… I don’t know,” she admitted, her face as pink as her hair. “I’ve only met him a few times! But… he is handsome and we did get on and…”  
  
“He is the tyrant of the vast lands of Cathay to the East, richest of all nations,” Henrietta said understandingly.  
  
“Yes. That is true,” Louise said, blushing. She coughed nervously. “But it’s not about marriage! It’s… it’s… in essence, the previous winner of the Best Newcomer at the Cabal Awards gets a public platform for the next year. He won – I was runner up. So if he can’t make it for whatever reason, _I_ get his place.”  
  
“Ah.” Henrietta nodded. That made sense. “So you wish him to step aside for you.”  
  
“Precisely. But of course, he won’t do it out of the goodness of his heart. Because there is none. Because he’s evil.”  
  
Henrietta curled a lock of her around her finger. “Well, are we sure about that?” she asked reasonably. “What if he’s actually just pretending to be evil to get some jolly righteous revenge on some cad who killed his beloved?”  
  
Louise opened her mouth. Louise closed her mouth. “You haven’t talked to him,” she managed eventually. “Trust me. He’s not doing it for such, ahem, ‘objectively suboptimal’ reasons.”  
  
“I don’t follow.”  
  
“If you’d spent time around him, you’d understand.”  
  
“Well, if you say so,” Henrietta said dubiously.  
  
Bringing her hands together, Louise moved into the main thrust of her argument. “So, yes! To this end, I have had Gnarl send a very proper formal letter requesting that we meet up for a brief business proposition in the Abyss. He has accepted my proposition, and so I will be meeting for him at a place that Jessica recommended to me. Apparently they serve fine refreshments when people meet up there.”  
  
“Well, that sounds eminently sensible,” Henrietta said approvingly. “And if you’re lucky, he might be looking to court you too!”  
  
The overlady pinkened again. “D-do you think he’d be that forward?” she asked nervously, hands going to her cheeks.  
  
“Well, he is a wicked tyrant.”  
  
“I… I have already decided to tell him that this meeting is for business, and… and if he wishes to court me, then I expect a rather finer repast!” Louise blurted out.  
  
“Now that’s the proper attitude! If he wants your hand in marriage, you must make him work for it! No doubt true love will prevail, if it is true love. And if it isn’t… well, I’m not really sure what happens then.” Henrietta frowned. “I don’t really have any experience with courtship of people who are not handsome princes who are also your true love. He’s a quite handsome emperor, if that helps?”  
  
“Perhaps,” Louise said. Henrietta got the distinct impression she was trying to change the topic. Louise leant back, taking a deep breath and trying to settle herself. Henrietta was not sure whether to point out that her eyes were smouldering like pinkish-yellow embers. “But if this works, I am probably going to have to spend at least a month in the Mystic East. Maybe more. I need to be back before midwinter, but I need to get this done. So I’m going to be taking a lot of minions with me on the windship and heading to a lesser tower that I found on the maps, to get it repaired as a temporary base of operations there. Until I restore that, I’ll be out of contact – and even then, it will strain the tower to overuse it and given that the tower heart is still damaged…”  
  
“Yes.” Henrietta nodded solidly. “No one wants large magical explosions.”  
  
“Well, not this kind,” Louise agreed. “And so I’ll need someone to hold down the home front. As I see it, even though you’re technically my prisoner, you’re the best suited person I have to just… just keep things running, do you understand?”  
  
Henrietta leaned forwards. This was interesting. Very interesting. It was wonderful that her friend trusted her this much! And she could use this chance! “I can certainly see why you wouldn’t want to put Gnarl or Jessica in charge,” she said, considering the advantages.  
  
“Quite so. And Cattleya is…”  
  
“A sweet natured and kind girl who is also a blood-drinking predator,” Henrietta said understandingly.  
  
“I was just going to say ‘coming with me’,” Louise said defensively. “Admittedly, yes, I wouldn’t leave her in charge if I wasn’t taking her, but since I plan to it doesn’t matter that she’s not exactly the sharpest fang in the mouth.”  
  
Henrietta giggled at that. “So mean! True, but mean.”  
  
“Yes.” Louise tapped her fingers on the table in front of her. “So you’ll just need to… you know, keep things running. Lady Magdalene is my spymistress so make sure to listen to her and her reports on Tristainain society, and… well, just do what you think is best if the Council try anything major. And _make sure_ ,” she added, balling her fists, “that that hateful little witch Montespan doesn’t kill my big sister. She’s mean, but _no one_ gets to do that! Do you understand me?”  
  
The princess leaned back. Louise was shouting. “Crystal clear,” she said quickly.  
  
“Then that’s all good.” Louise pursed her lips. “Though… I do have another favour to ask.”  
  
“Whatever you want!”  
  
“I… um. Need some help with practicing formal dinners with members of royalty. Cathayan royalty, if you get my drift.”  
  
Rising to her feet, Henrietta wrapped her friend up in a hug. “Of course! I know all about this kind of etiquette! I am a princess! I am graceful and gentle and-”  
  
“Too tight!” Louise managed to gasp.  
  
“Sorry, what?”  
  
“Too tight!”  
  
Henrietta released the hug somewhat, and Louise gratefully gasped for breath, red in the face. “Well… sometimes I don’t know my own strength! But by the time we are done, oh Louise Françoise, I would not be surprised if he fell in love with you at first sight!” She looked the overlady up and down. “Though we may need a new dress. I’m sure something cut lower in the che-”  
  
“I’m wearing my armour and that’s that.”

* * *

Down in the malodorous depths of the minion dwellings, four older minions looked at a desolate and sad pile of loot. Despite everything, it had not yet been re-looted by another minion, and the younger reds who had tried to purloin it had suffered compound fractures and temporary mortality.  
  
“Igni was a bad minion,” Maggat said, shaking his head while idly bashing the latest attempted thief into a wall. “Being not-believed-in to double death are a softy way to go.”  
  
“It shouldn’t have been like this,” Maxy agreed. “He should just have had his head cut off or been exploded or been crushed by horsies or shot with muskets or drowned or flattened by rocks or run over by a roller or eaten by a manticore or… or something he could’ve got better from!”  
  
“It are always a pain when there are no body to make them not double-dead,” Scyl said sadly. “It are cheating. Even when they is blown into itty bitty bits, there are normally some bits of body.”  
  
Fettid played the harmonica, producing what would probably have been a melancholy tune if it had not sounded like she was torturing a sack full of kittens.  
  
There was a respectful moment of sil-  
  
“So we split the loot four way?” Maxy said.  
  
“Oh, yeah, that are the worst way,” Maggat agreed, digging into the loot. “Now, we is needing another red.”  
  
“They has gots to have a name and something what is making them mem-or-able,” Scyl said dreamily. “That are what are making us stand out and why we is the worst minions.”  
  
“Is you sure?” Fettid said dubiously. “I think it are because we is dead killy.”  
  
“Oh yeah. That is what are probably helping us too.”  
  
“Shut it,” Maggat growled. “I has got a plan for who are going to take Igni’s place.” He added his share of Igni’s loot to his backpack. “Come with me.”  
  
It was sweltering hot in the portion of the tower infested by the reds. Since Jessica had set up forging equipment, the creatures had moved into the area under the smelter. They didn’t appreciate other minion breeds coming here. Countless yellow eyes locked themselves on Maggat and co.  
  
One of the reds strummed a looted lute, picking out individual notes. “We no like your sort around here, boys,” it cackled, from a high place. “You better go, or we is having a barbie-queue.”  
  
Maxy drew his own instrument, plucking out his own note. “Is it is ‘cause I is brown?” he asked.  
  
“Yeah. It is. You ain’t welcome here,” the red countered, beginning its own counter melody. “Why don’t you go back to where you came from?”  
  
“We was here before you,” Scyl pointed out, and was ignored.  
  
Maxy narrowed his eyes. “I think you is wanting a duel,” he said, matching the new tune. “Is you willing to really go up against me?”  
  
“Maybe I is, boy. Maybe I is wanting a d-urk!”  
  
Fettid withdrew the knife from his back. “Dibs on the duel!” she announced brightly, kicking the corpse off its high place having taken everything of value and stuffed it into her purse. “Oh! I win! Let’s play again! Scyl! Bring him back!”  
  
Putting that out of mind, Maggat scanned the room. The sign of red banners and the sound of a rousing song which seemed to largely consist of failed attempts to pronounce the word ‘Solidarity’ led him to what he was looking for. Maxy backing him up, he bullied his way through the sweltering room.  
  
“Oi!” Maggat shouted. “Char! Show your stupid face!”  
  
The crowd parted. “It is your face what is stupid!” Char said, from his position atop a pipe where he was posing. “You no is seeing that the overlords oppress us and use us as slaves and cannon fodder. But the Redvolution will free us. Mostly the reds! But you lot can be free too.”  
  
“What is you, stupid?” Maggat retorted. “Of course we is slaves and cannon fodder. That are what we was made to be.”  
  
“Working together minions can defeat the boar schwah zee! It are class traitors like you, Maggat, who is stopping us!”  
  
“Hey, Maxy,” Maggat whispered out of the side of his mouth. “What are a class traitor?”  
  
Maxy shrugged. “Dunno.”  
  
“Is I one?”  
  
“Nah,” Maxy said loyally. “You has no class, so you cannot be a class traitor.”  
  
That made perfect sense, Maggat had to agree. “We is needing a new red for the lot of minions what boss stuff around because the overlady tells us to. And you kept on talkin’ back to me even though we killed you a bunch of times.”  
  
“Most minions what get killed that much just give up ‘cause they is too bored,” Scyl said, coming up behind the other two.  
  
“Yeah! That are a lot of stubbornness to do that. So you is bad for this.”  
  
Char glared. “What? You want me to give up the Redvolution? Never!”  
  
“I’ll just kill you a bunch if you don’t,” Maggat pointed out.  
  
“The Minion is here to sigh-lance me!” Char shouted. “But I no are gonna be made quiet! The minions united cannot be defeated!”  
  
“Wrong again!” Fettid exclaimed gleefully, appearing from behind him with her knives.  
  
“I no are knowing why he says that,” Maxy said sadly over the sound of the screaming, shaking his head. “It are just asking for trouble.”  
  
“Perhaps he has a thing for having his feeties cut off,” Scyl suggested.  
  
“That are a very strange fetish,” Maxy said, as the mutilated Char fell down from his pipe.  
  
“Feet-ish,” Scyl corrected.  
  
Maggat hefted his club. “Fettid, give him back his footsies and let Scyl stick them back on,” he ordered.  
  
Fettid smiled innocently. “Right you are, boss,” she said, tossing them to the blue who got to work.  
  
“You can take my life but you cannot take my freedom!” Char declared.  
  
“You said that last time. Then we killed you a bunch and chained you up,” Scyl said. “Oops. He bled out. Gotta bring him back from the dead place again. Maybe we should take away his tick-it.”  
  
“Boss, boss, boss,” Maxy said effusively while they waited for Char to be resurrected. “You no is doing it proper. Let me do this talky bit. See, see,” Maxy said, wrapping an arm around Char’s shoulders and pulling him off the ground, “you no is thinking with a head what is clear. Rebelling no are going to work, because then we just smash your head in.”  
  
“Like we do a lot,” Scyl said brightly.  
  
“Yeah. That. Like we do if you do that again. You has to be cunning and tricksy and sneaky-like. But not like a green.”  
  
“Aww,” said Fettid, pouting.  
  
“Because you no is able to turn invisible and hide like a sneaky green.”  
  
“… that are a bad point,” Fettid admitted.  
  
“So you is going to be all thinky and work inside the power. And if you is trying to be a sneaky spy, we is the worst minions to be working with. Because we is the overlady’s top elite hench-minions. She are even knowing some of our names. That are real power, no?”  
  
“I are thinking so,” Char said, with a voice of slow realisation.  
  
“And ‘cause we is now your friendies in your secret cons-pirate-sea, we is gonna give you some loot,” Maxy expounded. “‘Cause the overlady are meeting with a very fancy boss-man from the East. We gotta be the worst minions we can be, and if you is gonna lead the reds, you is needing something horrid to wear on your head.”  
  
“Ta da!” Scyl announced, producing something black, floppy and smelling heavily of garlic from under his cloak. That was probably better than it smelling of minion. And Char recognised it on sight.  
  
“… are… are that a beret?” Char said, leaking oily tears from his eyes.  
  
“Looted it from a Gallian!” Scyl said brightly.  
  
“F-for the overlady!”  
  
Maxy let go, and sidled over to Maggat. “See,” he said slyly. “That are how you is man-ip-you-lay-ting a dumb-dumb red minion like that. And it are much faster than smashing their heads in. Maybe there are a way of doing stuff what does not need you to hit me in the-”  
  
Maggat smashed his head in for that, but when Scyl fixed up his skull and put his brains back in there were no hard feelings.

* * *

Maggat hefted his newly polished machete, idly dusting off one of his skull pauldrons. The man in red-lacquered armour facing him glared down from behind his monstrous-visaged helmet, hefting his polearm in an almost-threatening manner. On both sides, minions and armoured men postured and showed off their equipment. Fettid, Maxy, Scyl and the new addition of Char had acquired cigars and were smoking them offensively.  
  
Soft music played in the background, played by damned souls chained to one wall.  
  
Between them, a nervous demon with bright blue hair and a tongue piercing made her way to the sole table that was not occupied by soldiers or minions. She tried very hard not to think about how they were going to have to disinfect the place afterwards, because that was a worry for later. What she was going to do was taking all her potential worry for right now.  
  
She placed the tray down. “So, um,” she said, voice a high-pitched squeak. “That’s. Um. Um. One tall white chocolate latte macchiato.”  
  
“Mine,” said the armoured figure of the Steel Maiden – called by some the Overlady of the North. The kidnapper of princesses and murderer of ancestors took her drink.  
  
“And one… uh, oolong tea.”  
  
“Yes,” said Emperor Lee, dashing in black-lacquered plate which bore the emblem of the dragons that had rampaged across the greatest nation in the world on his orders. He lifted his tea from the tray in front of him and placed it carefully down on the table.  
  
“So… uh, I’m hoping y’all have a good time at Booma’s Coffee and… uh, if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask!”  
  
She received two glares, one from glowing eyes and the other from mirrored shades. The waitress swiftly retreated and had a panic attack in the backroom, glad that she was still alive. Whatever corporate were being paid for entering the hospitality business for the overworld, she wasn’t getting enough of it. Still, when her script found a publisher, no doubt she’d be out of here. And not a day too soon.  
  
The two figures of evil began testing their drinks for any signs of poison or other adverse contaminants, and only began to drink once they had found it to be clean. Louise took a sip. What a profoundly average drink. She’d wanted wine, but apparently the Abyss insisted you had to be twenty-one years of age to drink. This was clearly a marker of how it was a dreadful and cruel and inhuman and wicked place. She adjusted the set of the enchanted spectacles Jessica had made for her to translate Lee’s language, and cleared her throat.  
  
“So. Um. Nice to see you again. Say, is that new armour?” she asked. Henrietta had advised her to ask about his clothing.  
  
“Yes,” he said, the magic of the glasses providing the words he said in a proper civilised language – which is to say, one she spoke. “My old one was getting too weak. It is important to always enhance your armour or replace it, so that your equipment is superior to that of your foes. I notice you have acquired a heavily enchanted gem on your gauntlet.”  
  
“Yes. Yes, I have. Stolen from the treasury of Tristian,” Louise said, pleased that he had noticed. Wait, no! She’d had that the last time they’d met to go see that peculiar play-like thing! Had he only just noticed? The cheek!  
  
“… of course I noticed it last time,” Emperor Lee said quickly. “Of course I did. I just did not say anything about it.”  
  
Louise relaxed. Wait. Unless he was lying! Argh! It was so much harder to have these interactions when she didn’t actually know what he was saying and could only judge from tone of voice and Jessica’s demonic translations. And now he was staring at her and she was feeling awkward and quick, she had to say something. “I hate the weather in the Abyss,” she said. “It’s so hot.”  
  
“Yes. It is very hot.”  
  
“It… it seems to be hotter than before, too.”  
  
“That is what I have read. They say the Abyss is constantly warming year on year.”  
  
“They really should do something about it,” Louise said desperately. “The sky was on fire.”  
  
Lee nodded. “I was worried by that, but the guidebook said that it was normal.”  
  
“Yes. Ha ha. Those crazy demons.”  
  
He fortunately laughed. “Yes. It is astonishing the things they do sometimes.”  
  
“Ha ha.”  
  
“Ha ha.”  
  
The table descended into awkward silence. Louise tried to conceal her nervousness by taking a larger sip of her profoundly average drink. Why… why was she finding it so much harder to talk to him this time? They’d got on so well last time. But now he was colder and… had she offended him? Accidentally secretly ruined one of his plans? Was she – gulp – objectively suboptimal? Well, she’d set him on fire if he ever said that! Wait, no, he’d be immune to fire. He was so annoying!  
  
She cleared her throat. “I didn’t arrange this meeting to discuss infernal weather,” she said, putting down her drink. “I have a proposal which I believe will suit both of us.”  
  
“Please proceed.”  
  
Louise clapped her hands, and two minions wheeled in a map. The emperor’s bodyguards moved to intercept them and the minions and the lackeys ended up in a stare-off, until Lee waved them aside.  
  
“What is this?”  
  
“Excuse me,” Louise said, gesturing to the map, “but I have made quite a study of Cathayan internal politics recently. I notice that you have been having problems with certain border lords in the Xizang province – not to mention the lords of Ind, who also lay claim to this region. The border lords seem to object to having an evil ruler, for some reason.”  
  
“They will be crushed in time,” Emperor Lee said stiffly.  
  
“Oh, certainly, certainly. In time. But in the meantime, they harbour annoying orange-robed monks. Traitors to your rule,” Louise said sweetly. It felt so much better when she knew what to talk about. “They work with the lords of Ind against your interests, playing you against one of the other great powers of the East. They’re disloyal – and by all accounts, annoyingly smug and self-righteous.”  
  
“That is true,” the emperor admitted.  
  
The overlady leant forwards. “And yet your other lords would get uppity if you moved to crush them. Not to mention that the risk of a war with Ind is not worth such minor annoyances.” She silently thanked Gnarl’s analysis that had pointed out these things to her. He had to have looted the rest of his race’s collective intelligence. That was the only reasonable explanation. “So they survive to annoy you further.” She smiled widely, eyes lighting up. “Wouldn’t it be just lovely if they found that their refusal to allow you to station troops in their lands – to protect them, of course – resulted in all manner of attacks from vile forces of darkness? Perhaps they’ll think again about their decisions if a horde of minions,” she gestured to her followers who did indeed fit that description,” were to show up and burn down their castles, mutilate their yaks, and kill any annoying orange-robed monks they might see.”  
  
“I see.” Emperor Lee narrowed his eyes. “And now you will point out that if such a thing were to occur, my hands would remain clean and I could say without lying that I had given no such order?”  
  
“What a coincidence,” Louise said, who was vaguely irked that he had pre-empted the next part of her pitch. “That would be true, wouldn’t it?”  
  
“What do you want?”  
  
“For you to not be present at this year’s Cabal Awards,” she said flatly. “If you can’t attend due to, ah, ‘prior commitments’, then as runner up for Best Newcomer last year I get to give the speech. I need the public platform to strike against one of my enemies in the Abyss. You should be totally unaffected by this.” Well, unless you have a deal with Athe, she thought to herself. In that case she was really protecting him from the consequences of his actions.  
  
“Hmm. Well, that seems like an acceptable plan,” Emperor Lee said gravely. “I have found those border lords to be annoying. I accept, and will have my people settle any terms with yours. Will that be all?” He shifted, as if he was about to get up to leave.  
  
A sudden, towering, utterly irrational and nonsensical rage swept through Louise like a firestorm of evil pink flames. There was also some lightning in there, and possibly magical acid rain. How _dare_ he move as if he was about to walk out of her da… business meeting?! She had gone to a lot of effort to arrange this! There was no way he was going to ruin things by agreeing to what she had to say so quickly! There had to be… more… more tension than this!  
  
Did… did he not want to spend time with her?  
  
“It’s always fine to come to an arrangement with a civilised man,” she managed to choke out, hoping she didn’t look as… as humiliated as she felt.

* * *

Fires flickered in the boudoir of the overlady.  
  
Why was victory so bitter? Louise wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the wall of her bedroom, huddled up in warm fluffy clothing. She’d won. She’d _won_. She’d got Emperor Lee on board, and as long as she did the thing he needed, she’d be one step closer to crushing Montespan and the Council.  
  
But it didn’t feel like winning. Irritably, she wiped her watering eyes with her sleeve. He’d just wanted to go! He hadn’t even wanted to finish his drink!  
  
Why was her heart so… so wretchedly inconstant! She didn’t want to have feelings for the dark emperor of Cathay! She certainly didn’t want to have feelings for Princess Henrietta! But here she was, like a stupid vapid little girl! She turned as red as a beetroot from an innocent comment from her old friend, and here she was, angry and upset because she’d wanted a longer meeting with a wicked horrible dreadful man!  
  
It wasn’t even like Henrietta had any feelings for her, beyond honest wholesome friendship. She loved her dead prince. What could Louise do against something like that? Not that she even wanted to! But Emperor Lee… she thought he’d sort of maybe possibly liked her? Enough that he’d wanted to spend time around her, at least! She’d liked spending time around him! How dare he try to leave!  
  
She turned and punched her pillow a few times. It made her feel a little bit better, maybe. Taking a deep breath, Louise let out a melancholy sigh. Maybe he’d just been busy. Yes, maybe that was it. Being a dark emperor was a full time profession. No doubt he had… he had towns to burn down and dragon hordes to summon and dark magic to practice!  
  
What a dreadful man! Yes, it was a good thing she wasn’t getting in his way! Wasn’t it!  
  
No. She… she wanted to see him again.  
  
Louise sniffled. Probably… probably no one else had these problems. She was getting angry and upset that two people she didn’t _want_ to have feelings for didn’t have feelings back for her.  
  
“I’m so stupid,” she muttered miserably, hugging her beaten-up pillow. “Such a stupid little girl. Shut up, heart.”  
  
It’d be good to have some time away from Henrietta. Yes. She’d go off to the Mystic East, get to do some good old fashioned violence against people who probably deserved it anyway, and it would give her some time to get over these awkward feelings.  
  
Please, Founder.

* * *

“With a yo-ho-ho an’ a ho-yo-yo and something something something, a pirate’s life for stealin’ from him!”  
  
Ropes creaked and canvas flapped as the sails were raised by minions who were doing something that could charitably be described as singing. The ship had been repainted and caulked, and despite Jessica’s best efforts she had not been allowed to cover it with iron spikes or cover it with pictures of her work. Instead, the overlady had her working on a particularly cunning contraption.  
  
“All wrong!” Jessica called down happily, roping up from where she had been inspecting the newly attached propellers. “Final check… uh, checks out. Probably should have used a better word for it. But it’s all a-okay!”  
  
“It’s all working?” Louise asked, wrapped up in warm clothing for the heights. She was however, still wearing her helmet. For one, it made her taller.  
  
“Yep! Fixed and secure! The brand new revolving minion holding pens are ready to be loaded!”  
  
Louise nodded. “Get them in!” she barked at her browns.  
  
Some people might feel worried about spending time on a vessel made of wood which would be flying high in the air if there were reds around. Louise was one of those people, which was why she had devised an according-to-her ingenious way of mitigating against that risk.  
  
“And stay in there!” Louise snapped, as they threw the reds into a number of sealed hollow metal wheels in the hold that would connect to auxiliary propellers. A few reds had been bribed with loot to ensure that their fellows ran around the insides of the wheels in the same direction. Blues were on station to bring back any reds who died from exhaustion. After some thought she’d decided that they probably needed air holes, although it had been a close decision. Air holes might let the air in, but they also let the smell out.  
  
Shaking her head, she watched as Maggat dragged a beret-wearing red who had acquired a mottled-green jacket and a musket.  
  
“We is gonna find our comrades in the East! The East is red! Liberty! Equality! Looting!”  
  
“What is that minion talking about?” Louise asked Maggat, wrinkling her nose – a wise precaution when spending time around minions.  
  
Maggat hit the red over the head. “That are just Char,” he said easily. “He are our replacey-mint for Igni for burning things.”  
  
“Oh. I see.” Louise thought for a moment. “Carry on, then.”  
  
There was a crunch as Maggat hit him harder. Char managed to choke out an, “I is being oppreurk-” before he died and Scyl got to work bringing him back.  
  
Louise of course ignored that, because she had to say her farewells. Heading up to the deck, she was hit by a ballistic Cattleya.  
  
“Look at you!” Cattleya said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. It took her effort to cry things that weren’t blood, and darn it this was a special enough occasion that she was going to do it! “My little sister, going off travelling!”  
  
“… you’re coming with me,” Louise reminded her.  
  
“And I’m coming with you! I’m also going off travelling,” her sister continued, a rigor mortis grip around her neck. “Oh, I hope it’ll be enjoyable. We have barrels of Tristainian soil down in the hold and my coffin and I’m sure it’ll be dreadfully exciting!”  
  
“I’m hoping for boredom,” Louise said weakly. Forcing her hands up inside her sister’s hug, she loosened her grip until she could breathe again properly.  
  
“And by the way, I packed my maids too so you’ll have someone to look after you!” Cattleya added quickly. “Because there’s no way you can spend all day with just minions to talk to!”  
  
That seemed like a rather thin excuse to Louise. She had spent entire months with no one to talk to but minions. She could do it again. Wait. She had spent entire months with no one to talk to but minions. She was going to have to do it again.  
  
“That’s a very good idea,” she agreed. “Now, Catt, please can you finish moving your baggage onboard?”  
  
“Oh yes!” Her sister leapt off the edge, drifting down in gross defiance of gravity.  
  
Louise breathed a little sigh of relief at being able to breathe freely again and turned to face Henrietta and Jessica. Jessica had a smear of oil on her face, she noticed. “You two,” she began. “I’ll try to stay in touch as much as I can. Try not to let things fall to pieces while I’m gone, understood?”  
  
“Nah, it’s cool,” Jessica said. “It’s like your gap year, yeah? You’re eighteen. I went to Syama on my gap year.” She hugged Louise roughly. “Take care of yourself, yeah? Oh! Nearly forgot!” She rummaged in her backpack, pulling out a strange boxy device. “Be sure to take tonnes of snaps, got it?”  
  
Louise started suspiciously at the box, and privately vowed to have a minion test it for her while she hid behind something solid. That sounded bite-y. “I will try my best,” she said, covering up her confusion at Jessica-speak, “but I will no doubt be very busy. Perhaps Cattleya might take your… uh, ‘snaps’.”  
  
Jessica sucked in a breath. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that. There’s a teeny weeny risk the flash might kill her. Because she’s a vampire.”  
  
Right. No way was she using that except in emergencies, Louise thought privately. “Well, thank you very much,” she said gracefully. “Now, Henrietta. Remember everything I told you. Gnarl will be here, so he should be able to keep things ticking along, but don’t let him be too… Gnarl.”  
  
“He is very Gnarl,” Henrietta agreed, her eyes watery.  
  
“And pay attention to what Magdalene tells you. It’s really, really important that the Council isn’t allowed to hurt my sister. Got it? If they look like they’re going to do that, contact me immediately. Understood!”  
  
“Yes, of course! I wrote down a list of everything you told me to do!” Henrietta said firmly. “And I’m also going to keep a very firm eye on Albion. The Council are allied with those swine, so if they start to move it might be a sign of a greater scheme.”  
  
Louise swelled with pride. She was so lucky to have such a trustworthy friend. “That’s an excellent idea,” she said warmly. “Just… take care of yourself, you understand?”  
  
“I should be telling you that!” Henrietta insisted. “You’re going off into a foreign land where… where you probably can’t trust the food…”  
  
“Nah, everyone loves a Cathayan takeaway,” Jessica interjected.  
  
“… and you’ve only got some smelly minions and Cattleya to keep you safe,” Henrietta continued, ignoring her. “Oh dear.” She blotted at her eyes. “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry! But… but… but if you die, I’ll… I’ll never forgive you!”  
  
Louise felt her heart wrench. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she promised, her own eyes turning blurry. “We’ve got the parts needed to repair a relay tower so… so as soon as I have that back online, I’ll speak to you!”  
  
“You better!” Henrietta insisted, sweeping Louise up in a warm hug. Louise relaxed into the embrace. This was nice. This was very nice. She could get used to it. Hah! Much nicer than… than Emperor Lee’s would have been! She didn’t want her stupid useless feelings for either of them, but at least Henrietta _wanted_ to spend time with her!  
  
All too soon, it was over. “You should go,” Henrietta said, blowing her nose. “You want to get favourable winds, and the… the sooner you go, the sooner you’ll be back.”  
  
She and Jessica made their way down the gangplank after some more farewells, and stood back, to watch their departure. Louise stood on deck, leaning over the railing and listening to the minion babble and Cattleya’s fussing as she finished packing.  
  
Pallas looked up at her and mewled.  
  
There was a distinct frisson of excitement about this. She wanted an entirely boring journey and a nice easy favour in the Far East, but there was certainly part of her that wanted to see if some of the tales her parents had told her about Cathay were true. She’d have to get herself something nice there. And things were certainly getting a bit… inappropriate feelings-wise back here. Some time away would be healthy. A nice safe trip. Yes. It’d… it’d be good for her health.  
  
Well, at least if nothing went wrong. And she didn’t spend all the time being airsick. And the reds didn’t get loose and set the ship on fire. And they didn’t get stopped by people who might object to an overlady sailing over their lands. And she didn’t run out of windstones. Or get double-crossed by Emperor Lee when he sent dragons to eat her before she even got to her destination. Or…  
  
Oh dear. Louise started nibbling on her fingernails of her right hand. Stupid useless brain. Why was it coming up with all these stupid, useless and wrong ways that things could go pear-shaped? She was getting all nervous and feeling sick. And all for nothing!  
  
Because nothing was going to go wrong. Right?


	51. Proper Gander 10-3

_“A wise man does not question his teachers, but instead listens to them until he understands in the heart every word that comes from their lips. Only once nothing the master says can phase the student are they his equal, and until that day they must study under him, paying their termly dues to the one who enlightens them. After all, is it not said, ‘Red colourless free slaves learn ignorance from twenty countless masters of the Unseen Light’?”_  
  
–  Confoundus, speaking to his students

* * *

Remarkably little went wrong on the trip there.  
  
“Well, that was a dull voyage,” Louise said, looking down at the looming white mountains around her. The windship creaked in the breeze, but for all their many, many flaws minions were actually surprisingly good on board ships. Especially if they were dressed as wind-pirates, as several were due to a misguided attack by would-be plunderers who had got minion’d. “I’m glad _that’s_ over. And I just pray we can land before we hit any more turbulence.”  
  
In all honesty, she might act like she had been bored, but secretly she was very relieved. There had been a slightly touchy moment over Germanian airspace, but the patrol ship had accepted their merchant flags and had not noticed that the sailors singing bawdy songs were in fact minions. She had spent most of her time down in her cabin, catching up on her reading. That, and being airsick. There had been some very rough spots, and while some of her evil books of magic had been filled with ways to kill a man, they had been remarkably lacking in non-terminal cures for nausea.  
  
“Mraa,” said Pallas informatively, leaping up onto the rail and looking down at the ground below without the slightest care.  
  
“Yes, I suspect there will be mice down there,” Louise said, as she took sightings on the landmarks and compared them to the best map she had. That had been one unforeseen aspect of the trip. It was traditional to bring a ship’s cat along, to eat mice and rats. On a ship with minions on board, however, the cat had to fight minions for access to vermin. The minions seemed to use rats alternatively as food, hats, currency and something to bet on. Poor Pallas had lost weight, and also viciously savaged several minions who had tried to deny her dinner.  
  
“Mrrr,” Pallas said thankfully, licking Louise’s unarmoured hand.  
  
“You’re right, I do hope it’s warmer down in the valleys,” Louise said. She snapped her telescope shut. She knew where they were, if that bright blue river down there was what she thought it was. “It looks like it should be. I mean, it’s green down there. And I can see fields and terraces. I suppose there’s snow on the mountain peaks all year around, but at least it’s not an utterly frozen wasteland.” She shivered. “Of course, it’s just becoming autumn. Or at least it would be back home. I hate to think what it gets like here in the winter.”  
  
“Mraaaa!”  
  
“Yes, I know. We really don’t want to be here too long. I bet it’s utterly horrid to sail back during the winter months.”  
  
Pallas leapt down from the railing, sprawling out on the wood of the deck. She was clearly begging for a tummy tickle, and Louise gave her one for a few moments, drawing her hand back quickly when Pallas lost interest and went after her fingers. Scooping her cat up, Louise decided to go back into the warmth of her cabin, and consider her approach to the site of the tower.  
  
“I think I need a hot drink to warm up,” she added. “I don’t have a fur coat on my face, unlike you.”  
  
“Mrr.”  
  
She had found herself talking to Pallas a lot, especially during the daytime when the other kind of Catt she could talk to was asleep. It was sad to say, but she got more intelligent conversation from a cat than she did from either her sister’s maids or from minions. Pallas didn’t constantly say things like “It’s not my place to think about that, milady overlady”, or “I dunno, milady overlady”, or “Argh argh argh milady overlady are using too many words what are long and hard to think about, what did I do right, this are a form of torture”.  
  
… she was getting slightly worried about what’s-her-name. Urgh, Cattleya’s maids just blurred together in her head. Except for that one. Her vocabulary was taking on a distinctly minionish overtone, and she was carrying one of their clubs. Hopefully it was just the stupidity of the peasantry coming through. Louise was fairly sure that peasants and minions weren’t related, and it wasn’t that what’s-her-name had minionish blood.  
  
God. Please let it not be the case. She hoped they couldn’t interbreed. She really, really did not need that mental image. It couldn’t be true, anyway. What’s-her-name didn’t smell bad enough to be part minion.  
  
Putting those dark thoughts out of mind as she measured out distances and checked the compass in her cabin, Louise smiled to herself. Behind her, the kettle whistled. If they continued along their current course, they should be able to see the tower before nightfall. And when night fell… why, then Cattleya could take a look around.  
  
She could use the exercise.

* * *

On void-black wings, the hungry shadow of the primal terrors of the night descended. A dead thing – hungry and lamentable and cursed to abhor the touch of the sun – wearing the skin of a beast flew in over the walls. Eyes red, fangs sharp, it muttered to itself.  
  
“Stupid mean sisters and stupid diets and stupid trips abroad.”  
  
Cattleya, sad to say, was in an ill humour. While she loved her little sister dearly – of course, of course – over the past month and a half she had discovered that she loved her mostly from a moderately safe distance. It was fine back in the tower! They kept different hours, they had their own space, Cattleya could arrange her own mealtimes… all those necessary things to keeping two people on good terms with each other.  
  
Unfortunately, Louise was displaying that in certain aspects she took more after their other sister. Which was to say, she was a teeny weeny little ittle bit mean and pushy. Well, more than that. She was quite mean. Sometimes she was very mean. Especially vis a vis comments about Cattleya’s weight and general physical fitness.  
  
She had tried to explain to her that as one of the living dead, it was the blood which allowed her to do pretty much anything and her body was just here to hold the blood. But Louise hadn’t believed her. It was horrid.  
  
Hopefully there would be a snack in here. She had been fighting the minions and Pallas for access to rats. She wasn’t going to hurt her maids by feeding on them excessively, and drinking a minion’s blood was… eww. Eww eww eww. Eww. Eww.  
  
Cattleya shuddered and tried to put the smell out of mind. Landing on the wall surrounding the tower, she shifted back into human form with a flapping of wings and a faintly organic sound. There was snow up here. She was very glad that she didn’t really feel cold, but she was also glad that Jessica’s enchanted leather outfit had come with her. If she got too cold, she might freeze up and then have to get the blood pumping.  
  
Leaning forwards, she frowned and touched the golden amulet around her neck.  
  
“Louise,” she said. “I can feel… a holy force in here.”  
  
“What do you mean, holy force? Do you really mean ‘unholy’? And you’re meant to call me ‘overlady’ or ‘my lady’ when you’re on missions!” her little sister said sharply.  
  
She really was very mean. “No, I mean holy,” Cattleya said slowly. “It’s like… this whole place was blessed. Except… it’s rotten and faded and,” she pushed her hand forwards, which smoked slightly but which didn’t catch on fire, “… I can bear it.”  
  
Slipping forwards, she dropped down from the wall, landing in a crouch with a sick snapping of bones.  
  
“Um.”  
  
“What is it now, Carmine?”  
  
“I’ve just landed on a monk. They’re dead.”  
  
“… were they dead when you landed on them?”  
  
Cattleya looked down at the freeze-dried skeleton wrapped in tattered, faded orange robes. “Yes,” she said firmly. “They were definitely dead. Or maybe undead.” She looked around the courtyard, at the other long-dead corpses. “Given none of them are moving, I think they’re just dead.”  
  
She stepped off the crushed corpse, and gave it a nudge with her foot.  
  
“Yes. They’re dead. Definitely dead. There’s no chance of this one getting up and attacking me.”  
  
She poked it again.  
  
“Definitely dead.”  
  
“What are you playing at?” Louise asked dryly.  
  
“Well, I was thinking that maybe they’re just pretending so if I pretended to not think they were going to get up and claw and bite at me they’d think they could blindside me and then they’d attack. I mean, that’s what I’d do if I was pretending to be dead,” Cattleya said reasonably.  
  
“They’re not doing that?”  
  
“No.” She kicked the corpse’s head, which went sailing off over the wall. “And they don’t even react to being despoiled or anything like that. So it’s probably safe for you to come down.”

* * *

Louise had to agree with her big sister’s analysis. The monks were definitely dead.  
  
Now she had questions about what they had been doing here. And what had killed them.  
  
“What I are wondering,” Maxy said thoughtfully, waving a burning torch around for light, “is if they was mwhahaha evil monks who do stabbing of people on stone tables, or if they was the kind who go ‘Stop right there, I are going to stop you!’.” Casually pilfering one of the corpses, he pulled off a necklace. “I are thinking this one was actually a nun,” he added. “That are meaning they was probably the Good kind of monk. Evil nuns no are wearing robes made of so much cloth. They is wearing much less.”  
  
Gritting her teeth, Louise tried not to feel so offended that a minion that wasn’t Gnarl was thinking exactly what she was thinking, about when she had been thinking it. It wasn’t natural.  
  
In the late autumnal chill of the night this high up, she could smell something cold and fresh on the icy breeze rolling down off the mountains. There was no smell of rot, despite the dead bodies which littered the courtyard. Of course there wasn’t. They were so long dead any smell was gone. Not that they had rotted much. Their skin had just turned leathery and hard, like an old shoe buried in among the snow that covered the courtyard.  
  
“What were you doing here?” she whispered to them, slowly approaching one of the figures that hadn’t yet been minioned. There were two of them, slumped up against a wall. “What killed you?”  
  
Squatting down Louise found that their withered forms were as stiff as wood. Faded robes crackled, shedding ice as she searched their pockets. She found strange foreign prayer charms with hints of smudged ink on frozen paper. And here, dark tattoos still intact on old leathery skin.  
  
Except the markers weren’t quite the same. Louise frowned. They looked like they had the same basis, but one of them had additions, almost like they were crossing out the old markers. And there! Scars, too! Healed ones on the different one. There was something familiar about them, too!  
  
Gritting her teeth, Louise tried to think about the many, many books she’d read on the trip. There had been something about something like this. What had it been?  
  
“Oh!” Cattleya said from directly behind her.  
  
Louise shrieked and fell over. “Don’t do that!” she managed, once she pulled herself to her feet, dusting off snow. “Make some noise or something! At least remember to breathe!”  
  
“Sorry! But… oh! I… I think I recognise that tattoo! It was in one of your books!”  
  
That was it. “Yes,” Louise said, pinching her brow. “It was some kind of… some kind of sacred order of… of foreigners who liked sitting on cold mountains making silly noises with their mouth while sleeping.”  
  
“Meditating,” Cattleya chided her.  
  
“That’s the same thing. But look at this. The tattoos and the scars on this one are over the top. And I think this is a symbol for…” she squinted down at it, “this is one of the symbols on the inside of the throne room,” Louise said in a hushed voice. “Back home.”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
“Yes. I am. It’s one of the ones on the floor, one of the ones leading down to the tower heart.”  
  
“So… what does that mean?”  
  
Louise winced. “I can already guess. The monks – they killed each other,” she said, gesturing over the two of them. “One sect was… was corrupted by the evil of this place. They put the markers on themselves. Secretly, that is. The scars had healed over. So they marked themselves, pledged themselves to this evil, and they hid it. A good number of them must have turned evil. And then for some reason, they started fighting.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Louise said. “Maybe one of them was found out. Maybe the evil ones tried to take over and things went wrong. But,” she shook her head. “It’s cold up here. There’s snow here, and it’s still early autumn, so there’s snow here all year around. The bodies were left where they fell. So no one won. No one cleared up the bodies.”  
  
“Oh,” Cattleya said. She shivered, looking around. Her eyes glowed a dull red in the night. “I wouldn’t like to spend eternity lying around here.”  
  
Shaking her head, Louise leaned upon her staff. “We’ll clear the place up afterwards. Give them a burial, at least. Now, come on,” she ordered. “Get the minions to unload the specialist things Jessica made. Time to restore this tower.”

* * *

A few hours later and back in Tristain, Princess Henrietta was dragged by Gnarl from her nice warm library where she had been conducting black necromantic rituals during the witching hour.  
  
“Where are we going?” she asked, wrapping her midnight-black mantle around her.  
  
“Malevolent news, your highness,” Gnarl said cheerfully. “The overlady has managed to establish contact with us. It appears that she is alive and well in the Mystic East – or at least healthily undead! How malignant!”  
  
“Uh, yes,” Henrietta said, hastily trying to wipe away some of the symbols drawn in mouse blood on her hands.  
  
“She wishes to speak with you, your highness. Down in the heart room. I would hurry. Sustaining this connection over such a distance is not easy.”  
  
“I’ll… uh, I’ll be right there.” Henrietta reached for the bowl of water beside her ritual space. She hastily washed the pale ashes from her face and then took a cloth and cleaned the corpse-soot away from her eyes. It would have to do. She looked like she had bags under her eyes from the smeared corpse soot, but she’d just have to say that she hadn’t been sleeping.  
  
The heart room was cold and dark. Fortunately Louise-Françoise had forced the minions to make the narrow bridge to the heart less utterly perilous, because if she had not then Henrietta might have taken a terminal tumble as she sprinted to the tower heart. Only to remember that… uh, she hadn’t actually been told by Gnarl how Louise-Françoise was going to manifest or otherwise make her presence known.  
  
“Hello? Hello? Princess Henrietta? Can you hear me?”  
  
The noise was coming from the tower heart itself. Still rather out of breath from her dash, Henrietta approached it. “Louise-Françoise? You… are in the tower heart?”  
  
“Well, Gnarl said that with this distance, I can’t get an image – but my voice should be coming from it? How is it? There’s some crackling in your voice, but I heard you.”  
  
“Oh, Louise-Francoise!” Henrietta exclaimed happily. Her friend was alive, well, and she could speak to her. “I can hear you nearly perfectly!”  
  
“Oh, Henrietta! That is wonderful! I’ve missed you dreadfully!”  
  
“Not as much as I’ve missed you, my friend! It just isn’t the same without you around. Jessica tries her best, but she is a very different soul to you. And Cattleya is well?”  
  
“She is quite well. The trip was fairly peaceful, though I was dreadfully airsick over the mountains of Ruthenia.” Louise paused. “Oh, I wish I could see you. I miss you.”  
  
Henrietta shifted uncomfortably. She was acutely aware that she had forgotten to take off her necromancer’s mantle, that her face was streaked with dust and that her eyes were ringed in soot. The book had said that it was meant to make your magic more powerful and better at channelling Evil through one’s own natural water magic. Henrietta was beginning to suspect that the book might have been lying to her. Or it had been written by some man who liked his women to look pale, consumptive and like she had two black eyes. “I miss you too,” she said, on the grounds that repeating that would not go amiss. And she had missed Louise-Françoise.  
  
“I’ve just arrived. We’ve taken the tower, and I’ve only just got it up and running. I’ll spend a few days fortifying the place. The minions have already found that the place is lousy with the mushrooms that they love, so they’re sorted, but I may have to go in disguise to some villages. That, or send some greens to steal food – though that is quite unhygienic. Still, things are going well. How have things been for you?”  
  
“Well.” Henrietta considered what to say next. A good girl would probably mention to her old friend that she had begun dabbling in the art of reanimating the dead as zombies and skeletons, and had ventured forth down into the lower levels of the tower and tried binding the various dead things down there that Louise had never got around to clearing out fully. The same good girl would also probably not have a plan to have some of the zombies board a Council-owned windship as passengers and then make it crash. As soon as she managed to get the hang of making the zombies do what she said, she would do it! She really would! And then she would need to find a way of getting to Albion while the overlady had the windship, in the name of True Love.  
  
But then again, she wasn’t a good girl. Her mother had been very clear about that. She’d told her again and again that she was lustful and controlled by her vices and brought shame to her family and what-would-your-father-think. And being a good girl got you locked in a tower for something that wasn’t your fault. Being a naughty girl got you power over life and death itself. So, really, there was no point in being a good girl. Being bad was much more _useful_.  
  
“I have good news, Louise-Françoise,” she said brightly. “We have had a spot of bad weather recently. I’ve been working on dealing with some of the zombies and skeletons in the underlayers. One of them got loose, you know. It was a dreadful nuisance, until a minion found it and beat it to death with its own arm.”  
  
“Oh dear. I thought I had the minions seal all the entrances to those places.”  
  
In all fairness, she had. It had been very inconvenient for Henrietta when she had been trying to take control of one. Yes, her control was still… imperfect, but the walking dead were not particularly threatening when one had access to bored minions who were sulky that they hadn’t got to go on an adventure with their overlady. “I made sure to ensure all the doors were re-sealed,” she said, telling the truth in a very technical sense.  
  
“That is good news. Well-managed. Now, with regards to- oh, wait a moment.” Louise paused. “What is it, Catt?” A pause. Henrietta could just about hear Cattleya’s voice, but not make out her words. “… what do you mean, lurching undead monks have risen from the catacombs and are trying to destroy the tower once again? Well, yes, obviously that’s exactly what you mean, but…”  
  
“Their blood is disgusting! It’s all… cold and clotted! And full of holiness! It burned my tongue! Oh, you were talking to Henrietta? Henrietta!” Cattleya was now audible. She was talking like someone who had just taken a mouthful of unexpectedly hot soup. “How are you?”  
  
“I’m fine. And you?”  
  
“Dreadful,” Cattelya said mournfully. “I’ve lost weight and my outfit is all loose on me and you know whose fau-”  
  
“She has lost weight,” Louise said smugly. “Sorry, my princess, but we’re really going to have to cut this short. I have undead monks I need to kill. Re-kill. Destroy.”  
  
Perking up, Henrietta smiled. She could help! “Freeze-dried monks from the Mystic East are mummified by the cold,” she said authoritatively. “They’re highly flammable.”  
  
She could hear Louise’s malevolent smile even without seeing it. “Oh, Henrietta! That is wonderful news!”  
  
“No, it’s not,” Cattleya said. “I’m going to go… go stay somewhere safe until you finish setting everything on fire?”  
  
“Would I do that?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Yes,” added Henrietta.  
  
Louise pouted. “Betrayed by my sister and my own princess,” she said. “Oh well. Yes, Cattleya, protect this chamber. I think it’s time to make this new tower feel all nice and homey with a good roaring fire.”

* * *

Muskets sounded in the deep. The sigils on the left hands of the minions glowed as they fired and reloaded with an efficiency unusual for their race. Not even one of them had looked down their barrel and fired it out of curiosity about what it looked like.  
  
“Come! Comrades!” Char waved around his banner made of a monk’s staff and the tatters of an orange robe, throwing fireballs down at the dead. “We is gonna kill them for the Redvolution! Down with priests! Strangle them with their guts!”  
  
“Idiot,” Maggat growled, caving in one monk’s head with a club blow. “They is dead. Strangling no are gonna work.”  
  
Still, insofar as his minionly brain had space for such matters, Maggat was vaguely concerned. There was an awful lot of undead monks down here. From what they’d been able to find before the endless hordes of the dead had pushed them back, the temple here had been here for quite a long time and interned a remarkable number of their dead in the tunnels. As soon as the tower had reactivated, they had all woken up. And they were all Good, despite being reanimated corpses.  
  
Now, this meant a lot less to a minion than it did to most of the forces of wickedness. Minions had absolutely no problem with holy ground, and in fact were rather fond of sacred graveyards because they were usually full of things that could be looted and killed, or sometimes killed and looted. But still, these undead monks were rather more agile than their normal kind, and worse, had a minionly attitude to death. If they weren’t sufficiently smashed up, broken bones simply knotted themselves together with white light.  
  
Despite the fact that he should be enjoying an endless fight as much as Fettid was, the annoying veins of cunning that sometimes seemed to creep through his veins suggested to Maggat that – unthinkable though it was – it was possible that minions might be out-attritioned. Which was nonsense, of course – but the fact that he was thinking such things indicated something was very, very wrong.  
  
Then Louise showed up and burned the tunnel full of monks to ash.  
  
Maggat nodded solidly. The world was back to working like it was meant to.  
  
“All right!” Louise shouted. “Minions, form up! We’re smashing our way to whatever holy or sacred or something place that is making them come back. If it’s another minion hive, I swear I’ll scream!”  
  
“Oh! They is coming back from the dead! That means it are gonna be the blue hive,” Scyl said solidly.  
  
She stopped. “Really?” she asked curiously.  
  
“Oh yes. I is never right about these matters,” Scyl said dreamingly.  
  
Evil language, yes, Louise reminded herself. “Browns!” she shouted. “Form up and protect the blues while they handle the casualties! Reds! Lay down suppressive fire! Greens, protect the rear! Prepare to advance! We’ll head towards the catacombs, killing everything dead in our way!”  
  
That met with the expected cheers. Motivational speeches to minions were so much easier than demon lords or Cathayan emperors or people in your class at school.  
  
The catacombs were presumably normally quiet, dark and gloomy, but minions were an effective remedy for all three. Instead, they were filled with goblinoid shouting, fire, and burning undead monks. Louise would have called it nightmarish, but honestly she’d seen worse.  
  
Her metal-clad feet clanked on the rough stone. This area seemed familiar. The holes dug into the stone walls broke the architecture. In these tight quarters the undead monks could only attack along a narrow line, and so ran headlong into the minions. Sometimes she had to burn things up, but in all honest, she was fine with that. She was perfectly fine with-  
  
And then the minions smashed down the door to the innermost chamber, and Louise totally lost her chain of thought.  
  
Blue and red fires warred in a great bonfire in the centre of the room. Raising her left hand, Louise considered the strange feelings emanating from the fires. There was the soft kitten-warmness of Evil, but something much more painful and cold. Probably Good, given it was the opposite feeling to the pleasant feelings of Evil. Kneeling around it in a circle were dead kneeling figures. Insofar as far as Louise could tell from the long-dead monks and nuns, their robes were more expensive and there were more gold necklaces and the like. That probably made them the leaders.  
  
As one, they rose, and took up their poses. They moved a lot more smoothly than the rank and file.  
  
“That was not the blue hive!” Louise shouted at Scyl, feeling somewhat aggrieved.  
  
“Well, okay, it are actually a super-special sacred oath of the monks what are always going to stay in this place and stop Evil from living in this place again,” Scyl said, sounding hurt. “But it would be worser if it are the blue hive, wrong?”  
  
The foremost monk, dressed in a faded orange robe and with an elaborate gold necklace moaned something in… some language. Probably Cathayan, if Louise had to guess, but they spoke lots of languages in Cathay. Either way, it sounded like the last gasp of air from a tomb door. His hollow eyes felt like they were staring into her soul.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Louise said, falling back on the well-recognised noble method for dealing with foreigners – ie speaking in your own language slowly and loudly. “But do you speak a civilised language? Tristainian? Romalian? No?”  
  
The monk replied.  
  
“How about an uncivilised language? Like Germanian or Gallian or Albionese.” Louise shuddered. Urgh, Albionese and its damned –ough string of letters. Presumably that was related to the Dark Tongue in some way.  
  
Unhelpfully, the monk didn’t even have the common decency to speak one of those languages.  
  
“Do you speak Infernal?” Louise tried.  
  
But there really was no helping him.  
  
“Wait! I know!” Louise rummaged through her outer robe. “I have those glasses for understanding what Emperor Lee says. Where did I put them? Oh, drat! Did I leave them on the ship?”  
  
The monk said something, and then moved his hands in a spiralling gesture which narrowed in towards his core. A ball of light formed within them, bright and pure and righteous in the gloom of these catacombs. That couldn’t be good.  
  
Wait, no, it was probably Good. That was the problem.  
  
“Minions!” Louise barked, throwing herself out of the way even as the corpse-monk punched the ball at her. Enthusiastically a trio of browns jumped in the way of the shiny glowing thing, possibly trying to eat it. Instead, it blew them into smithereens.  
  
The other minions took that as encouragement and so charged in, screaming various war cries. The first brown to get close got its head punched clean off. So did the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth. The seventh, however, managed to impale the nun who’d just killed the fifth and the sixth on his broom and, gibbering, started using the undead holy woman as a hammer against her fellows.  
  
“Reds! Burn them!” Louise shouted. “Blues, get going on that recovery!”  
  
But that drew the attention of the corpses. One nun charged straight at her, hands moving like hungry snakes as she carved a path through the minions. A quick chant and Louise had a fireball at the end of her staff. She held it like a spear, keeping the dead woman at arm’s length.  
  
“Take her down!” Louise snapped, jabbing out with the burning orb. The nun flowed backwards with each poke. Oh yes, she certainly didn’t like fire. “Someone! Kill her!”  
  
The nun flowed to the left, one open-handed slap pushing Louise’s staff away from the line of offence. Leaping backwards and muttering to herself, Louise clumsily dodged the first too-fast strike, but now the other woman was inside her guard.  
  
Gritting her teeth, Louise dropped her staff and threw a left-handed punch. It wasn’t a very good punch at all. The nun blocked it with a palm strike which jarred Louise’s arm to the shoulder, and hissed something in her dead voice.  
  
A hiss which quickly turned into panic as her own arm went up in flame. Withdrawing the gauntlet, Louise opened her fist and revealed the flame she’d been hiding within. With an exhalation, she sent fire rushing forth again and the nun ignited, collapsing down in a patter of embers.  
  
“Founder, that really hurt,” Louise complained, shaking out her arm. Lord, she wished Cattleya was here. But then again, with this much fire around, things wouldn’t be going well for her big sister. She flexed her shoulder, and then stooped to pick up her staff.  
  
“Overlady! Boss are coming your way!” Maxy shouted.  
  
And the head monk was right in front of her. She managed to catch his first punch on her staff with purest luck, but the second took her right in the chest and with a crunch of metal she was sent skidding backwards to slam into a wall.  
  
Louise spat out blood and gasped for air. Founder, that hurt! There was a fist dent over her left breast and the padding hadn’t taken anywhere near enough of the blow. And she’d bitten her lip. “Fireball!” she managed to squeak out, holding her staff in one hand. The monk backhanded her ball of flame out of the way, advancing slowly but surely. “Fireball!” He did the same. “Argh… uh. Lightning!”  
  
Thunder boomed and a forked tongue of pinkish lightning licked out towards the figure. And then he caught it. He actually caught it, grabbing the bolt and twisting it up in his hand as you might gather twine. The motions of his hands brought to mind flowing water and lapping waves, graceful and smooth.  
  
“For the overlady!” screamed Fettid, throwing herself at the monk with both knives out. She stabbed the lightning ball within his hands, and promptly exploded, along with the monk. Undead religious figure and green viscera painted the walls.  
  
Wheezing, Louise tried to breathe a sigh of relief. “Blues,” she said.  
  
“On it!” Scyl said cheerfully, pulling a trowel out from under his cloak and getting to work scraping Fettid off the floor. “Fettid had fun! She no have died like this before. I bet she are going to have lots of fun stories about the dead place this time.”  
  
“Yes. Ow. Yes. That is… that is a thing,” Louise panted, trying to massage her chest through the plate armour. Founder, it hurt. She was certain there was going to be a bruise down there and her armour was pushing in on the bruise. She needed to get out of this armour before she damaged herself more. And… oh, sugar! Jessica wasn’t here!  
  
“Oh, hey, the monk are still dead,” Scyl said happily. “It are making it easier to get Fettid out.”  
  
How was she going to get this fixed? Maybe she could have it just hammered out. Wait.  
  
“Scyl. Why is him being…” Oh, _sugar_. Louise spun and set the area containing the partially rebuilt Fettid, Scyl, and the reforming monk ablaze. “Why won’t you die!” she shouted at the dead man that crawled from the blaze, and felt fairly stupid for doing so after she thought for a moment. “Minions! Just keep on beating him! Reds, try to burn him to a crisp!  
  
“Burny burn!” a red enthusiastically shouted.  
  
“Wait, wait, can we set him on fire if he are already on fire?” another red tried, as a brown hopped around, feet on fire from where it had been giving the monk a good kicking.  
  
“I no see why not!”  
  
“But surely being on fire is something what is yes or no, and he is no?”  
  
“Just cut him into pieces!” Louise shrieked, and then broke into coughing. Lord, if her armour hadn’t been there he would have probably shattered her ribcage like a clay pot. Leaning on her staff, she limped away, desperately trying to think. He was coming back again and again, just like minions did. Just like Louis had. So he had to be getting life force from somewhere. Or unlife force. Or something.  
  
“Overlady!” Maggat shouted, latched onto the burning monk’s shoulders as he beat him around the head again and again with a club. “I is sure you has a cunning plan… Snot, cut his feeties off! Grabbit, pin the arms! Char, burn the breaks! I is sure you is cunning, but be quicker!”  
  
“Quickerer,” contributed Maxy as he tried sawing at one of the feet. “This are a problem! His legs are healing! Now my knify are stuck!” One struggling kick from the monk sent him flying into a wall, with the sound of a smashed lute.  
  
“Wrong! Everybody, stick all your knifeys in him! If he heal around them, maybe he no struggle so hard!”  
  
She blinked heavily. She could feel both Good and Evil in the fires in the centre of the room. Half the monks here had gone evil. And she was really, really good at Evil magic.  
  
As fast as she could manage, she limped up to the sacred and also cursed fires. Louise took a deep breath. If she was wrong, this was going to hurt. A lot.  
  
And she eased her left hand into the fire. Gritting her teeth, she concentrated and forced raw Evil out into the flames. “No pickled monk is going to get the better of me,” she hissed. She could feel her hate and pain bubbling up inside her. “You punched me in the breasts. It really, really, really hurts. You stupid barbarian pig. You should have _burned_.”  
  
And with that last grated word, the fires flared. Red and blue alike were replaced by pink. The last of the reanimated corpses in the room deanimated.  
  
Louise sagged down, utterly exhausted. “Is… is that it?” she managed.  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, I is thinking so,” Maggat said, dragging the charred corpse of the long-dead priest to her. “Look. He are still dead and now he no are moving.”  
  
Lord, she was going to be black and blue under her armour. Thank you, Jessica and thank you padding. She looked over the room. Minion losses hadn’t been that sizable. The monks had mostly just been crushing skulls, tearing off limbs and occasionally pulling out a ribcage and stabbing them in the face with it. Minions did that to themselves when they were bored on Voidsday. Scyl was already back on his feet, still smoking slightly, working on Fettid.  
  
“Overlady,” Maggat reported smartly. “I are finding a key on the boss monk’s body.” He tapped his nose. “Probably for some treasure, what.”  
  
“Some treasure what?” Char asked.  
  
“I dunno what. That are for the overlady to find out, idiot.”  
  
“Hee! That are tickling!” the newly reconstituted Fettid said happily, what hair she had all standing on end. She picked her nose, recovering a ball of spark-encrusted snot. “Oooh! It are magic! For the overlady!”  
  
“Lovely,” Louise said faintly. “You can keep it.” Aching all over, she pulled herself to her feet. Find the treasure now. Then, back to the boat to lie down for… uh. Several days felt good.

* * *

“Ow. Ow ha ha. Ow. Ow.”  
  
Lying back on her hammock in the vessel, Louise tried to ignore the pain as Cattleya fussed over her and rubbed healing balm into her many bruises. To avoid thinking about it, she’d been reading the things she’d found in the head monk’s quarters, now that she’d found her translation glasses again. They didn’t give a perfect reading, but it was quite enough for her purposes.  
  
The chief abbot had been quite a punctual record keeper, both before and after his death. Things got rather less detailed once he had become a dried corpse who only woke on certain holy days to carry out rituals, but it was enough that it seemed he had died almost three hundred years ago. The cold up here had just preserved the bodies. The cold, and apparently some kind of magic they had used so they could stay tied to the mortal world to fight evil.  
  
Well, that sounded a lot like necromancy to Louise’s ears, so really she was doing the right thing by destroying them. Anyone self-deluded enough to practice necromancy for a ‘good cause’ wasn’t the sanest apple in the box.  
  
Louise frowned. She couldn’t help but feel that metaphor had gotten away from her slightly. Clearly a sign of how tired she was.  
  
Regardless, from her reading she could tell that they’d set up their sacred fire to purify this place, tying their life forces to it to push the force of Good – and something had gone wrong. Some of the monks had turned evil, then they’d killed each other and the life force in the tower, part Good and part Evil, had reanimated the monks to fulfil their sworn oaths. If her estimates were right, it had died down enough that they lay dead most of the time, but when she had reactivated the tower, they had all sprung back to unlife.  
  
And there were other things in the documents, older things that she wasn’t quite sure the meaning of. Her glasses had problems with the older records, presumably because the language had changed over time. There was talk of a mysterious wanderer who had built this tower, and reference to mysterious figure called Shen Nao, Zuo Shou and You Shou – servants of Bulei Ma, who was either a hero seeking to destroy the tower-builder or one of his servants. It was rather unclear. In fact, from the context Louise suspected the writer was recording old tales.  
  
Maybe there were secrets hidden somewhere in the region which would explain why the overlord who built this tower had come here in the first place.  
  
“Ow!”  
  
“Sorry, sorry,” Cattleya apologised. “But you’re going to need bed rest! Lots of bed rest! Which means it’s just going to be down to me to make sure your plans go according to… well, to plan! Don’t worry! You can trust me!”  
  
Louise groaned. She had thought things were going well.


	52. Proper Gander 10-4

_“None save I truly understand the problems of trying to breed a bloodline until it masters the very darkest of magics. There’s a lamentable amount of wastage. Things would be so much easier if I could just breed sister to brother, but no – I simply cannot do that. Not because of petty morality or difficulties in matchmaking, but because the Gallians have quite adequately shown that breeding too closely within the family results in mewling freaks with the intellect of a dead rat and a congenital fondness for garlic. Both are utterly unacceptable.”_  
  
–  Louis de la Vallière, the Bloody Duke

* * *

Viscount Wardes lifted his glass. His hand trembled slightly, a faint movement that left the wine dancing. “To your good health, and to the health of your child,” he said.  
  
“To all the best for my poor husband,” Lady Magdalene said with a straight face, raising her own glass. The autumnal light streamed in through the window of her townhouse.   
  
The clock ticked in the background, counting away the seconds. The silence stretched out, filled with awkwardness.  
  
“So, Jean-Jacques. You look… well,” Magdalene said. She could tolerate his presence. And there was enough of a hint of old friendship that she was not about to tell him just how dreadful he looked. Her own de la Vallière blood left her pale and saturnine, but he was even paler than she was – and so thin!  
  
The man smiled humourlessly. “You’re the first person to say that in a while. You always were a liar, Mag.”  
  
“Fine. Let me correct myself. You don’t look like you’re getting enough sleep. And you’re skipping meals. And you’re shaking. And…”  
  
“I’ve missed your honesty. It’s so much like being stabbed.” Wardes sighed. “The adversities of power, I am afraid. I’m rarely off my griffin. I’m just back from Versailles right now, dealing with that Gallian madman and his too-sharp daughter. I’m not sure which one is more dangerous. A man who spent half our meeting playing tourney against himself – and losing – or a girl who’s trying to be good without any understanding of what actual morality entails. Maybe if they spent less time marrying their aunts and uncles, they might produce a sane monarch after a generation or two of outbreeding.”  
  
Magdalene snorted. “That’s asking for a lot.” She’d forgotten how amusing he could be. It was one of the more charming things about him. “They’d have to shed their bloodline fetish for blue hair first.”  
  
“Well, we can but dream.” Wardes took a sip of wine. “I’m just here in Amstreldamme to speak with Françoise-Athénaïs, and then I have to go to Roma to speak with the pope. His Holiness is quite amenable to something that has concerned us all. Are you aware of the recent infernal breaches?”  
  
Nodding, Magdalene smoothed down her gown. “I’ve heard rumours of them, yes. The first one was discovered by Guiche de Gramont down in Romalia, correct? It is so wonderful that heroes like that young man are around. But I know there have been others – including one in the Great North Sea, in the ruins of Doggerland.”  
  
“Mmm hmm.” Wardes shook his head. “I tried to get more about them from the Gallians. King Joseph was useless. Utterly useless. He hadn’t heard of any such thing. Princess Isabella had at least heard of them, but she claimed her agents haven’t managed to see any before they close. She did say, however, that her personal priest had taken a look at one of the sites and couldn’t see any signs that there had been a demonic incursion.” He tapped his glass against his teeth. “And that they seem to open more when the red moon is full.”  
  
“That would make sense,” Magdalene observed. “That wretched moon has dominion over the forces of Evil and its wicked magic.”  
  
“Yes. Hmm. Yes. That is… something I wished to speak to you about, actually,” Wardes said, awkwardly. “I know we have had our… our differences in the past.”  
  
“That’s one way of putting it,” she replied, lips thin.  
  
“But this is vital. If there are portals to the Abyss randomly opening in Halkeginia, perhaps the forces of darkness are planning to invade. I – and the Regency Council – need the best minds to predict the wicked wiles of the demons and find a way or a spell to close such incursions.” Wardes leaned forwards. “Mag, you have always been one of the smartest people I know. And we may have parted on poor terms, but I know…”  
  
Magdalene smiled a sickly sweet smile. “Would this involve me having to assist Françoise-Athénaïs in any way?”  
  
“Well,” Jean-Jacques said awkwardly. “It’s possible that you may have to…”  
  
“Then no.”   
  
“No?”  
  
The sunlight glinted off Magdalene’s spectacles. “Perhaps if she hadn’t arrested a third of the University Council she might find it easier to get people who can tolerate her presence. And I’m not Eleonore – which is to say, I haven’t been thrown in jail by Françoise-Athénaïs yet. But also that I am not willing to put up with her just so I can throw verbal barbs at her.” She drew a deep breath, and settled herself down. “Now, of course, I do understand the importance of this matter. It wasn’t your fault, Jean-Jacques. Well, mostly not. Partially. It was more her fault than yours. But regardless, if you want my help, I’ll work alone.”  
  
The man gritted his teeth, and then sighed. “I suppose it’d be too much to ask for you to look past your grudge,” he said, half to himself.  
  
“Strangely enough, I’m not entirely comfortable working with someone who’s shown that she’s willing to throw Eleonore in jail because she can’t get over _her_ grudge,” Magdalene snapped. “I mean, yes, certainly all of us have dreamed about throwing her in prison from time to time, or gagging her, or tying her up and beating her with sticks, or washing her mouth out with soap, or stuffing a honeycomb in her mouth when she opens it, or…” Magdalene paused for breath and tried to remember where she had been going with this. Oh yes. “But she’s the only one who’s actually gone and done it. The prison bit, I mean. Possibly the gagging thing too.”  
  
Wardes groaned, head sinking into his hands. “You know Françoise-Athénaïs isn’t well,” he said softly. “She hasn’t been well for years.”  
  
“No, Jean-Jacques,” she said firmly. “You are not well. You are ill, and should spend a week or two in bed to rest and recover. She is, on the other hand, utterly crazy. She is madly in love with you. And I don’t say that in a positive, romantic way. I mean her adoration for you is a sickness. She’s like a lovesick young girl.” A cruel smile crept onto her lips. “As befits her stature, I suppose.”  
  
He shifted awkwardly. God knew, she wasn’t exactly comfortable either. The two of them had been close back before her marriage. Very close indeed. And she couldn’t say that there wasn’t a little bit of her which compared Jean-Jacques quite favourably to her brute of a husband – who even now groaned up in his sickbed from those crippling injuries the servants of the overlady had inflicted on him. But that was all in the past.  
  
“I don’t need your chiding,” he said wearily. “I know I made mistakes.”  
  
She folded her hands on her lap. “And you encourage her, the way you two carry on. It’s not a secret. I know, the court knows, even the peasantry knows. Lord, it’s like the two of you don’t even know discretion. You used to be rather more careful,” she added, speaking from personal experience. “Founder, man, now you’ve no longer got an engagement looming over you, you’ve gotten sloppy.”  
  
Head hung, Jean-Jacques ran his hands through his grey hair. “What do you want?” he asked wearily. “An apology that I picked her over you?”  
  
“What nonsense,” she said just as softly. “She might act like a lovesick young girl. I am a grown married woman. We had a thing, once, and I do wish that it could have gone further – but we both had arranged marriages and then there was that incident with you, me and her when we were holidaying in Roma and…”  
  
“Yes, yes, I get your point,” he said quickly, blushing. Her cheeks were pink, too. “There’s no need to bring it up again.”  
  
“Good,” she said quickly, looking away. “Yes, let’s not dwell on that.”  
  
“Yes. Good.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
They both took a moment to compose themselves. “Where were we?” he asked, taking a long sip of wine.  
  
“Oh, yes.” Leaning forwards, Magdalene affected a manner of concern. “I may not like her now, but I can’t put the good times we once had behind us. She’s sick, Jean-Jacques. She needs help and at a time like this, when the infernal forces of the Abyss threaten us all, a madwoman like her should not be on the Regency Council.  
  
“I don’t blame you, not at all. She didn’t seem to snap until she ordered the arrest of all those scholars. But it’s clear that the stresses of the Council are doing her no favours. She needs quiet and seclusion in the countryside, not to be locking herself in her office worrying about the state of Amstreldamme until she is driven into fits of paranoia.”  
  
“I can’t remove her.”  
  
Can’t, not won’t, she noted smugly to herself. “I’m not asking you to,” she said, even though that was her end goal. “It’s just she might need a leave of absence. Some time to recuperate from… a sickness, say, in the countryside.” She paused, deliberately. “After all, she’s always been so small and slender. The smogs of Amstreldamme can’t be good for her.”  
  
Wardes looked uneasy. Magdalene decided she’d pushed things far enough.  
  
“But that’s not my place to say,” she said easily. “Come, now. I must say, meeting up like this with you has reminded me of how the good times were. If I am to help you with this problem with the infernal breaches… tell me more.” She rested her hand on her midsection protectively. “As I am going to be a mother, I don’t want my child growing up in a world where demons are invading. That is definitely not what I would call a nurturing environment.”  
  
And all the time she was thinking what she would say to the Voice of the Overlady. She didn’t like that woman as much. Her alliance – and it was alliance, not servitude – was with the overlady herself. She would need to guard her tongue.

* * *

“It’s snowing outside,” Louise said, leaning at the window of the somewhat patched-up tower. In good weather she could see the red leaves down in the valleys below her mountaintop refuge, but cloud had rolled in and now it was colder than it got in anything but the most freezing Tristainian winter. Shaking her head, she awkwardly closed the shutters with a disgusted sigh. Her left arm was wrapped up in a sling, and under her gown her shoulder was black and blue. “We want to be heading home before winter seals off these mountain passes.”  
  
“Oh, goodness yes,” Cattleya said from her pile of blankets. “Remote mountain lairs are very bad for vampires, you know. No fresh blood, no social contact, hibernating all summer and the risks of freezing solid in the winter – no wonder so many vampire nobles in their fortresses go quite gaga.”  
  
“Yes,” Louise said, because there wasn’t much else she could say to a statement like that. “In that case, I want us to be entirely ready to move out once the weather clears.” Stalking over to what had been the monks’ grand council table, she took in the maps she had built up of the area. “Now with regards to the three lords Emperor Lee described as ‘troublesome’ four or five times in the space of about a minute…”  
  
Cattleya joined her. “Those were the ones we are to kill, correct?”  
  
“Yes,” Louise said crisply. “I did verify that afterwards. It’d be dreadfully embarrassing if he had been mugging ‘Oh no, don’t kill them’ and it turned out afterwards that he actually meant it.”  
  
“That would be a terrible social faux pas,” Cattleya said, nodding her head. “The books in the library were very clear that even the old de la Vallieres considered it very rude to kill someone you weren’t intending to kill.”  
  
“Oh my, yes.” Louise tapped three locations on the map. “Now, the lords in question rule Jiazha, Goicang and Tiangacun. I am waiting for Emperor Lee to provide clarifications on the defences of Jiazha,” she said, with a sigh.  
  
“Men are so unreliable,” Cattleya said knowingly. “Not like women.”  
  
“Mmm. So, the nearest one is Tiangacun, and knowing that, I chose to focus my planning on how we will destroy it. It is a fortress-city built into a mountaintop, with but one accessible route and walls reinforced with terrible magic that makes them almost immune to siege weapons. The lord dwells in the top of the tallest tower, and his thousand guard are totally undefeated in battle. They will rather die to the last man than let any pass the nigh-endless staircase that leads to the tower. Assassins who try to sneak through the fortress die to its ten thousand traps, and he eats nothing that hasn’t been approved by five loyal food tasters. And the tower itself is warded against dragonfire, so Emperor Lee cannot just burn them off.”  
  
“Oh! Simplicity itself!” Cattleya paused. “I must say that I don’t see what makes that easy,” she confessed.  
  
“Because the local vampires can apparently only hop,” Louise said, with a smirk. “You’ll just fly over the top and throw a barrel of blackpowder in through the window. Then the minion riding it will set it off.”  
  
“Ah ha!” Realisation dawned. “One of your smart bombards!”  
  
“Jessica shouldn’t call them that! Nothing which involves a minion as the ignition system could possibly be called smart!” Louise said hotly. She took a breath. “But yes. The minions assure me that it will be ‘the worstest worst fun’ and the reds were fighting to volunteer for it. Now, with Jessica’s modifications to the minion ignition system and the use of very thick armour, she estimates there’s a chance that the minion’s corpse might remain somewhat intact and get blown off the cliff, in which case it’s your job to catch it. I don’t want to waste reds. They’re hard to replace.”  
  
“Even if they’re on fire?” Cattleya said in a tiny voice. “I can’t catch things that are on fire.”  
  
“I shall provide a net.”  
  
“Hurrah! I still don’t think it’ll work, but hurrah!”

* * *

Ten days had passed since the initial planning session, and things had gone pretty much exactly as Louise had devised.  
  
“Oh, Louise! I never had any doubts in you! Well, I had a few, but congratulations!” Cattleya said brightly. She smelt strongly of soot and gunpowder residue, but was still beaming.   
  
“So,” Jessica’s voice came out of the magical crystal that Louise was using to try to stabilise the spell linked to the tower heart. The two sisters were clustered around it, within the central chamber of the tower. The signs of crude minionly repair were everywhere in the looming architecture. “Sounds like it went poorly?”  
  
“Uh… oh, most certainly,” Louise said smugly, once she had decoded the Evil tongue.  
  
“Wicked. The smart bombard design worked? Complete with the reusable detonator?”  
  
“Well, the net wasn’t strong enough to catch the minion, but the armour held the body together until it stopped bouncing,” Cattleya said before Louise could answer. “So we even got to retrieve the red!”  
  
“Neat. Wish I’d come with you. It sounds wicked. Oh! Guess what happened here?” Jessica said, with a note in her voice which suggested she strongly believed Louise wouldn’t believe what she was about to say.  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“So, yeah, your spymistress has been in touch. There’s internal division in the Council! Looks like they’re super-mega not happy with the Madame de Montespan! And she also reports that they’re very worried about the Abyss. There might be hell portals opening up over Halkeginia or something. I dunno. It’s strange. I haven’t heard anything about that from Dad. So either my aunt’s doing that all on her own, or more likely it’s just one of those unnatural phenomena.”  
  
Louise frowned, looking at Cattleya. Cattleya looked similarly worried. “Do you think Mother and Father know about that?” Cattleya asked softly.  
  
“I’m not sure,” Louise whispered back. She cleared her throat. “This is alarming,” she said, thinking quickly. “Jessica, please can you consult with Gnarl and see what you can get out of your father with regards to proof that demons are – or are not – behind this. My plans may have to change if… well, if a full-scale demonic incursion occurs.”  
  
“Oh yeah. They probably would,” Jessica agreed. “I mean, man, it’d be a fucking bitch to get right up to nearly taking over the country and then, wham, demons everywhere. And then there’d probably be a holy crusade and even worse, fucking Izah’belya would probably be designing the outfits for the invading hordes and then there’s no chance of us getting free PR from the headlines. So, yeah, better look for that.”  
  
“Certainly,” Louise said brightly, crossing her fingers behind her back. “That is my foremost concern there. The journals. May I speak to the princess, please?”  
  
Jessica coughed. “Oh yeah, so Henrietta got some reports of a goblin tribe moving through the mire near the tower, so she’s taken some of the minions out to try to capture them.”  
  
“I do hope she’s being careful,” Louise fretted. “Well, that’s one of the three lords dead, at least. Soon Catt and I shall be going out to inspect Goicang. I’m concerned about it. The trick I used on Tiangacun won’t work here.”  
  
“Oh yeah?” There was a crunching noise that Louise identified as Jessica chewing something. “Sorry, I was watching a play on the mirror when you called. So yeah. Let’s hear your problem. Maybe I can help.”  
  
Louise looked down at her notes, clearing her throat. “The grand fortress of Goicang is nearly impregnable. A great arched dome covers the central citadel, made from magical jade said to have been blessed by pagan gods. Which are probably demons I haven’t been able to identify yet, but still, Emperor Lee has tried to burn it out and failed. Even if I try jamming blackpowder into it, the entire structure is solidly built enough that I won’t do much damage – and won’t have enough forces to take it through violence.”  
  
“Hmm. Yeah.” Jessica sighed. “That’s a real puzzler. I guess… they have to be getting water from somewhere? And food?”  
  
“That’s my thought,” Louise agreed. “I’m hoping there’s something like an underground river that the blues can swim up through. Otherwise, I might have to risk trying to smuggle minions in with the food, and I fear that won’t work on anyone with a sense of smell.”  
  
“Yeah, well, worst of luck. I’ll try reading up on Cathayan fortress design, see if Dad has any books on it or stuff. Or, you know, secrets sold by traitors.”  
  
“Thank you,” Louise said, meaning it. “I fear they’ll only have upped the defences with what happened to Tiangacun.”

* * *

The sun was low by the time Henrietta returned to the tower.  
  
“Yo, Henri,” Jessica called out to her as the captive princess strode in, skull-covered armour flecked with mud. “Have fun?” Yeah, Jessica thought, she sometimes forgot Henrietta was meant to be their captive. It was pretty academic now, anyway.   
  
“Fun? Not exactly,” Henrietta said with a not particularly pleasant smile on her face, pausing by the doorway. “But I was quite satisfied by today.”  
  
“Neat. What happened?”  
  
Shambling figures in blood-soaked uniforms of the roadwardens shambled past Henrietta. One or two of them might have been moaning quietly. “I defended myself from servants of the Council quite adequately,” she said. Clutching her skull-topped staff in both hands, she prodded one of the animated corpses. “Did you know, the oaths of the servants of the crown still bind them in death? These men were _much_ easier to raise from death. It’s simply splendid.”  
  
“Neat.” Jessica paused. “Oh yes, what was I going to say? Yeah, Lou called. She’s having fun too.”  
  
“I missed it?” Henrietta said, face falling. Taking off her helmet, she shook out her hair. “Oh, poot.”  
  
“I bet she’s going to be so proud of you when she gets back,” Jessica said encouragingly.  
  
“No, I don’t believe she will,” Henrietta said firmly. “That’s why you’re going to leave it up to me to explain matters to her. All in good time.”

* * *

Though of course she wasn’t prepared to show it to anyone, Louise was glad to be leaving their temporary base of operations. It just didn’t feel like home. There was something wrong about the fact that she was starting to think of her tower back in Tristain as her home, but Lord help her, she was.  
  
“Mmmmrr,” Pallas observed, from her position on Louise’s lap.  
  
“Yes, it is jolly cold up there too,” she agreed, sitting back in her saddle and enjoying the autumnal sun. “A point well-made.”  
  
“Mraar.”  
  
The soldiers of the lord of Goicang had moved in to claim areas of Tiangacun, too. From what she understood of the local politics, his wife had a claim on those lands. Louise was very glad about that. It meant that they were spreading their forces thinner, and hopefully that might mean there might be fewer guards in the city. Perhaps even more pertinently, it meant that there were lots of people working for her enemy wandering around carrying weapons and riding horses.  
  
She had now procured a cavalry squadron of minions, as well as steeds for her and Cattleya – and there were enough horses left over for her sister’s dietary needs. She was wearing her full protective clothes, and was swaddled up in robes on top of that. Louise was a little concerned that the robes may have belonged to some of the undead nuns. They were distinctly orange.  
  
The only thing that was currently a small crimp on her day was that the peasants here seemed to believe that minions dressed in a horseman’s uniform and riding his steed and carrying his weapons were, in fact, soldiers of the lord of Goicang. The stupidity annoyed her.  
  
“Maybe they’re just so beaten into submission that they respect anyone on horseback,” Cattleya suggested with a yawn.  
  
No. She’d like to think that was the case, but Louise just knew there was something _strange_ going on with minions and their incredibly bad disguises working on people. She just knew it.  
  
It was probably related to how those damn minions were now learning Cathayan. By wearing blooming clothes. It was a load of bull-sugar, that’s what it was.  
  
A glint caught her attention as they came around the mountain. Down in the valley below the low ridge, the sun was shining off a hill. No, Louise realised, eyes widening; that wasn’t a mountain.  
  
Oh. Oh my.  
  
Goicang looked so much smaller in the maps. Smaller and less like a man-made mountain. For the first time, Louise grasped how that city had managed to survive Emperor Lee’s signature ‘Swarm them with man eating dragons’ attacks.  
  
… she was going to have _harsh words_ for him when this was all over. Playing with a girl’s heart by setting a nigh impossible challenge for her! So cruel! So horrid! So… wait, her gauntlet felt strangely warm and actually quite hot.  
  
Swaying in her saddle, Louise felt quite faint. She raised her left hand to her brow. This turned out to be a mistake.

* * *

_Another hand. There’s always another hand. This one is manicured, long-nailed, and cool – though not cold – to the touch._  
  
“Forwards!” her mistress shouts, sweeping her arm forwards. Hordes of foul-smelling minion sweep out, armoured in crude and ugly hand-forged iron. The human forces have formed up in a great army to oppose her, but they are too slight, too hungry, too weak. There is no way her mistress can lose.  
  
_She feels rather smug about that. She’s the best bit of armour around. Alas, her current mistress is a failure who’s only acquired the gauntlet and the helmet, so she can’t truly unlock her full power – but despite that, she burns with dark majesty._  
  
“Your malevolent wickedness,” says a far, far too familiar voice from behind her. “Your plan is most cunning. I await its next step.”   
  
“Yes it is,” her mistress gloats.  
  
There is an awkward pause.  
  
“Your wickedness, do you want me to implement the next stage of the plan?” the familiar voice asks.  
  
“It will make me the queen of the world?” her mistress asks.  
  
“Yes, your cunningness. Your plan, ably aided and advised and adjusted by me, will of course grant you all the power you desire. As you saw with your infinite insight, there are ancient artefacts of Evil here, stolen from one of your sadly lamented predecessors by the Forces of Good. With these in your hands, surely your victory will be inevitable.”  
  
“Then go ahead! Continue with my plan! Continue with things back here. I shall go to the front lines and dispatch these pitiful peasants who stand against me.”  
  
_She feels another surge of power through her, as her mistress throws a ball of dark energy at a flying crane. But this hand isn’t very capable. She’s had a lot better._  
  
“Permission to anticipate your orders while you are gone, your dark majesty.”  
  
“Oh, whatever is needed.”  
  
“As you wish, my lady.”  
  
_Quite apart from the fact that she hasn’t been reunited with the rest of the armour, the mind wielding her isn’t up to the task. It has ambition, yes, but it has no vision._  
  
Her mistress rides forwards on her night-black steed, accompanied by her loyal guards. They surge through the lines, and her mistress’ lance plucks out men from the fray. She revels as dark magic surges through her, reaping a great toll. Pleasure fills her to bursting as she is thrust into the hearts of men and torn out, red and bloody, clutching their hearts. When she crushes the dripping organs, she feeds the life-force within to her mistress with utmost glee.  
  
Then comes the surge of power from the great jade citadel up ahead.   
  
_It is a trap. She understands, in this instant, that it is a trap. They chose to have the battle here, and her mistress walked blindly into it, taking the entirety of her forces with her._  
  
This place is a holy place, sacred to the forces of Good – and it can feel her and her mistress’ army and it can feel the damage that her mistress has done to the land.   
  
_She feels now the priests within the temple, praying for her destruction and the salvation of this land._  
  
The Goodness in this place is slow and ponderous and not that bright, but now that it has come to life it is like an avalanche. It can’t be stopped.  
  
_The holy flame chars her. It is a pain she has felt before, but always hates._  
  
Her mistress vaporises. She hits the ground, glowing cherry red. When the snows come, she is buried – and when the snow melts, she is carried away in the meltwater and swept down the river.  
  
And once again, she is forgotten and lost. History becomes legend. Legend becomes myth. She passes out of all knowledge. Until at last, by luck and happenstance, she finds a new wearer.  
  
She always does, every time. Evil always finds a way.

* * *

And then Louise was back in her own body. Thoughtfully, she rubbed her still-warm gauntlet and concentrated on not falling off her horse. What on earth had that been?  
  
Well, it seemed to have been a warning. Trying to attack Goicang would get her burned up by celestial fire falling from the heavens. That was… uh. Good to know, she guessed? Better to know it than to not know it, at least.  
  
“I don’t think we’ll go in the front door,” she said to Cattleya softly.  
  
“I don’t think they’d let us in,” Cattleya replied, shrugging as she adjusted the set of her stolen robes.  
  
“Well, no.” Louise leaned back, folding her arms, and staring up at the blue sky.  
  
“It would be really annoying to have them refuse to let me in. Then I’d have to wait outside!”  
  
What had the gauntlet meant by that, Louise wondered? Was it… was it a thing that it did whenever it was taken to places where former wearers had died? Or was it something more sinister? Well, it was the gauntlet – and had clearly been worn by a lot of very, very evil people before her – so it was probably something more sinister, but Louise really felt that she needed something more usefully precise.  
  
Also, she had to account for the chance that the Evil artefact was trying to manipulate her.  
  
“You would completely try to do that,” she muttered. “You evil thing.”  
  
“Mrrrrr?”  
  
“… no, not you. You’re a cat. You don’t…” Louise trailed off. “You only manipulate me for belly rubs and tickles and food and being let out,” she clarified.  
  
“Mrra,” Pallas replied, licking her fingers.  
  
“Overlady,” said Maxy, wrapped up in his oversized looted eastern armour. His floppy hat protruded out from under his helmet. “What are the lord of the place what we is going to wreck looking like?”  
  
Louise frowned, and rummaged through one of her saddlebags. She had a description and a sketch from Emperor Lee’s men, but she couldn’t recall it off the top of her head. “Let me see…”  
  
“Are he a big man with a mouse tache which are long and he are dressing in red armour and he have got the picture of a dragon with the head of a lion what are being carried by the men what are following him?”  
  
“Yes, I believe so,” Louise said, pulling out her papers and checking them.  
  
“There are a man what look like that just up ahead.”  
  
Shading her eyes, Louise checked. Annoyingly, Maxy was right. Just leaving the gates was what looked to be a hunting party. And the iconography of the lord of Goicang was carried first among it.  
  
Raising a hand, she slipped out of her saddle and dashed to the edge of the low ridge. Pulling out her spyglass she looked more closely. Yes, the overweight figure with a large moustache perfectly matched the description she had of the lord of this place! But there was also the banner of the lord of Jiazha among them.   
  
Louise could barely dare to breathe. Next to the lord of Goicang was a slim figure dressed in white who didn’t even look old enough to shave every day. Could that be the lord of Jiazha? Two of her targets here, riding out away from the defences of this fortress city to go hunting together? That had to be… it had to be some kind of trick!  
  
But what if it wasn’t? After all, Emperor Lee had said that they were old allies and that they were united against her. She had killed one of the three, so perhaps the other two would come here to meet and plan their response. If the lord of Jiazha was also moving into Tiangacun, that would explain things. They were working together to stay strong against Emperor Lee.  
  
This was a one-off chance.  
  
“What are you seeing, overlady?” Maggat asked.  
  
Louise thought quickly. With the warning from the gauntlet, there was no way she could assault that fortress-city without its powerful magic being called down upon her. It would be a risk to attack the two of them without proper planning – but a risk she might have to take? Cupping her hands over her mouth, she tried to not hyperventilate. The pressure of the choice was like a worm, squirming in her gut.  
  
“Maggat,” she said eventually. “I see an opportunity.”

* * *

The young lord of Jiazha sat uneasily upon his horse. He did not feel comfortable this close to the lord of Goicang. The man was old and experienced and far more cunning. While their lands were allied, they had never been friends. And without Tiangacun here to balance the power of Goicang out, he feared for the safety of his lands. The lords of Goicang were good-hearted, but greedy. His stomach twinged to think that the guardians of the jade city might persuade themselves that his family’s land would be safer in their hands.  
  
Though should his line be extinguished, better it be safeguarded by the lords of Goicang than the wretched Dragon Emperor. The forces of evil writhed in that man’s heart – and too many of the lords of the rest of Cathay welcomed that man’s devilry. As for the rest, they simply feared it.  
  
He feared the emperor, too. How was he so capable? Some days, he could be down in the South East and then mere hours later he would be seen leading his armies against rebels. His mind was a cold and implacable mechanism.  
  
The young man wished sincerely that his father had not been slain by one of the assassins of the treacherous usurper-emperor. If only he was here, he would know what to do. He would know how to deal with Emperor Lee – and he would not be intimidated by the boisterous temperament of the lord of Goicang insisting that the two of them go hunting together.  
  
He still had a hangover from the drinking last night.  
  
“Chin up!” the lord of Goicang bellowed at him. “Fresh air! A sporting hunt! A pleasant autumn’s day! This is the life, my son!”  
  
“Yes,” he replied. He would rather be home, inside. For all that it was sunny, the wind which came off the mountains was cold. It would probably be worse in the tiger hunt. “Such a… a glorious day. It would be a waste to…” he sighed, “just sit around, reading poetry and drinking tea. What manner of man would want to do that?”  
  
“Exactly! The joy of the hunt – and the glory of protecting the peasants from man-eating tigers tainted by the forces of darkness – is wasted on such people.”  
  
“Yes, wasted. And… what under the sun was that?”  
  
Something had just fallen over the cliff above them, landing heavily on its head. The warriors moved to protect the lords. Before them on the road was a strange red creature, horned and dressed in an assortment of offcasts. It wore a red cap, and carried a fire-spear of some kind.   
  
Glaring up at the cliff, it raised its fist and shook it. Words spewed out of its mouth in some strange language. There was no sign of anything up on the cliff side above, however.  
  
“What barbaric tongue is that creature speaking in?” asked the lord of Goicang, frowning. Raising one hand, he had his warriors hold.  
  
The lord of Jiazha frowned. “I think it is one of the languages of the Occident,” he said, frowning. “It is… I have read of it. He is saying something like ‘A-barrier-that-holds-back-water, you juvenile-fly’.”  
  
“What is that meant to mean?”  
  
“I do not know what it means.”  
  
“Well, what do you think it means?”  
  
“Wait, wait, he’s saying something else. ‘Why did you make use of me as a thing what is for… aiming?’? I must apologise – I have only made a cursory study of the languages of the Occident.”  
  
“Perplexing indeed,” the older man said. “Well, this looks akin to a goblin, and I like not the horns it has. Kill it.”  
  
“Are you not curious as to why there is a goblin-like creature speaking an occidental language? Perhaps there is some meaning to this. What could it have fallen from?”  
  
“The demands of leadership are indeed weighty,” the Goicang’s lord said. “I would say that…”  
  
What he was about to say would be eternally a mystery barring necromantic intervention, however. Because as it turns out, while the demands of leadership were indeed weighty, they were not as weighty as half a ridgeline being collapsed down onto one’s head.  
  
There was blood in his mouth. The young man could barely breathe, and his face was only just exposed. From the pain, many bones were broken. He couldn’t see any of the others.  
  
“Oh, look at this one,” he heard, spoken in some crude occidental tongue. “It are still alive. Overlady! We has a prisoner!”

* * *

The wind in the mountains screamed like it was mourning its lost lord. No wailing gale could stir the heart of their murderer, though, who sat within her mountaintop fortress contemplating dark things.  
  
“We really are running low on torches,” Louise said to herself sadly. Hunched over her desk, she was reviewing their inventory. “The minions ate more of them on the way here than I thought they would.”  
  
A man was dead today because of her. Well, fine, rather more than one man was dead today because of her, but the rest had just been soldiers and didn’t count as much. By what she knew of this place, he had been a good man. Well, he had been no more evil than your average foreigner. They’d certainly been the enemy of Emperor Lee.  
  
And the lord of Jiazha was in her jails. Or at least he was in a room that she hadn’t decorated, which was effectively a jail. She didn’t have a real jail. She was _meant_ to have killed him. That was the terms of her agreement with Emperor Lee.  
  
But. But. She couldn’t just… she couldn’t kill a man who was lying there, injured, when he had done her no offence. He wasn’t even an enemy of hers. She was just doing this for Emperor Lee. And he was so young! Younger than her, if she guessed right.  
  
Louise slumped down. A strand of hair fell in front of her face, and she huffed it out of the way. She’d just… keep him as a hostage. Yes. She’d let Emperor Lee think that the lord of Jiazha was dead and she’d keep him imprisoned and when she was done, she could… she could just set him free and there wouldn’t be any real harm done. Well, apart from the fact that he currently had two broken legs and a broken arm, but those would heal.  
  
Curse it all. He had been meant to die in that landslide. That was nice and impassive and… and impersonal. A natural accident. How dare he survive with only three broken limbs!  
  
She really wanted someone to talk to who could… could help her settle her mind. And no, Cattleya was not a good conversationalist on matters of gut feelings and instinctual morality. In fact, she had firmly told Louise that her own moral compass was not to be trusted because it was the instincts of a blood-hungry beast and thus ethical dilemmas tended to resolve into things like ‘will this feed me?’ and ‘will this give me power over others?’. She really wanted Henrietta here, but she’d settle for Jessica.  
  
Not Gnarl, though. He’d just be… he’d be Gnarl.  
  
She rose, pacing up and down across the room. The braziers flickered, casting long dancing shadows on the walls.  
  
And there was another thing. Louise feared very much that she had to go into Goicang regardless of her success in picking off the lord. Oh, certainly, she had ‘killed’ the three lords – but she had travelled a long way to get here. She had to make her time worthwhile.  
  
It could be very worthwhile indeed. The notes she had managed to get Jessica to translate that she had found in the temple built on this ruined tower said that the monks and nuns here were from Goicang. It said they had taken many powerful yet wicked artefacts from this place, and hidden them in the depths of Goicang, so no figure of Evil could ever use them again. Now, generally Louise was in favour of that, but it was different when it was _her_ using them. She _was_ the overlady and they were hers by right and she could use them responsibly to overthrow the wicked Council. And anyway, Emperor Lee was going to take the city, so really it was the moral thing to do to ensure that he couldn’t get his hands on them.  
  
Who knew what he’d do with them?  
  
Plus, there was no way she was just _handing_ the city over to him without a chance to plunder it at least a little bit. If he wanted it intact without her taking her… her fair share, he should have done it himself!  
  
Louise glowered at the wall. Yes. That. That’d show him for acting all dismissive to her and her feelings! Men! They deserved everything that they got coming to them! And maybe if she found something particularly attractive that she didn’t want to use, she might give it to him as a present – but he better not have the cheek to _expect_ a gift from her!  
  
She should probably pillage Henrietta a present too, Louise considered as her mind went off on a tangent. Something exotic and pretty from the Mystic East. She would probably like that. Maybe some of the gorgeous necklaces she’d seen in drawings of noble ladies. Or one of those silk dresses.  
  
Anyway, it was a good thing to bring back gifts when travelling abroad. It was… it was polite. And it would help persuade Gnarl she was serious – and Jessica would probably whine at her if she didn’t get a gift too.  
  
Yes, Louise decided, sitting down on her bed. Taking a short diversion to pillage Goicang – subtly, of course – before returning home would just be prudent. Also, profitable. And ethical. And it would make Princess Henrietta happy – and it would show Emperor Lee that she wasn’t ‘suboptimal’, and that he should treat her as a peer if he knew what was goo- bad for him!   
  
All in all, quite excellent.


	53. Proper Gander 10-5

_“Through nonchalant night and the sinister umbral dark places of the world, I have come to impart mighty and powerful words from my most imperial liege. She instructs you, ‘Surrender now, and I won’t kill anyone who doesn’t deserve it. Resist and I’ll let Magda unleash Mr Huggy’. If it’s all the same to you, I would advise you human scum to surrender. I couldn’t eat for a week after seeing what she did to Guldeford.”_  
  
–  Apostrophe, Night Emissary of the Shadow Queen of the Dark Elves

* * *

“Ladies,” Louise said crisply. She leant over the wellspring of magical power, the glow illuminating her face from below. There were notable bags under her eyes and her hair was limp. “I shall be brief. The three lords are… no longer a problem. I shall be returning home shortly and-”  
  
“Neat,” said Jessica brightly, her voice emanating from the crystal at the heart of this lesser tower.  
  
“Indeed. It is most well done, Louise-Françoise,” Henrietta agreed. “In just a few weeks, you will be back home! It will be so good to see you again!”  
  
Louise raised a hand, and then remembered that they couldn’t see her. “Ahem,” she said instead. “However, there is another thing I need to do here in the Mystic East. I have heard rumour of a great treasure kept within Goicang.”  
  
“Oh, indeed,” Gnarl interjected. “I remember. It was the… something or other. Well, perhaps I don’t remember. It was an awfully long time ago, you know. It is just terrible that you intend to complete the dark work of your forebears and reclaim this dreadfully important thing.”  
  
Sighing, Louise massaged her temples and tried not to glare at the crystal. It would just give her a headache and she didn’t need more of one. “Gnarl,” she said, as patiently as she could manage, “do you actually know what the treasure is?”  
  
“Well, not exactly,” the old wizened voice said. “The memory goes, I’m afraid. And the rumours were never very certain at the time. But I do recall being certain it was some relic of one of the early overlords – perhaps even the first or second! Or maybe the fifth. Certainly before the twelfth.”  
  
“You’re good at being helpful, aren’t you?” Louise muttered. “Very well. Jessica. Contact your father. I have an order for him.”  
  
“Neat. What you looking for, Lou?”  
  
“I currently have Cattleya interrogating a captive I took, who I have reason to believe knows closely guarded secrets about the defences of Goicang,” Louise said with a yawn, “and I expect results from her.”  
  
“Uh.” Jessica cleared her throat. “Why Cattleya? Isn’t she a bit… Cattleya-ish for that?”  
  
“Firstly, because she is the one with the evil vampiric hypnotic gaze, not me,” Louise said. “And secondly, it turns out that she learned Cathayan from Father because… well, uh, she was bored with being locked in the house and unable to go out during daylight. Hence, she needed something to do. She says her accent is terrible, but she does speak it.”  
  
“I suppose that makes sense,” Jessica said dubiously. “So, you want explosives?”  
  
“Something along those lines.” Louise looked down at the catalogue she’d brought with her. “Item One-One-Three-Slash-Four-Eight-Nine-Nine. You know—”  
  
“Oh, yeah, that one. ’Kay, ‘kay. Hmm. Well, it’ll be international shipping, so that’s three to seven days delivery time,” Jessica said helpfully.  
  
That had been much what Louise had expected. She had once enquired as to whether you could send living beings by the Abyss’s mail system, but the shipping charges were extortionate and the consequences invariably fatal. Not to mention messy.  
  
“Are you getting enough sleep?” Henrietta interjected. “Louise-Françoise, you sound exhausted.”  
  
“I am,” Louise admitted, rubbing her eyes with the balls of her hands. “I’m going to take a day off soon, I promise. Just a day with nothing to do.” She slumped down. “That’d be nice. Except… I really should get this done first. I can rest on the ship ride back home.”  
  
“No,” Henrietta said firmly. “You should rest properly. You are a noble lady, and that means you need your beauty sleep.”  
  
“Thank you for reminding me,” Louise said bitterly, running her hands through her hair. “And for your part, Henrietta, I have a question for you.”  
  
“Anything for you, my best friend!”  
  
“Have you been doing necromancy again?”  
  
“No,” said Henrietta, at the same time as Jessica said “Yes”.  
  
Louise raised her eyebrows. “Jessica. What has she been doing?”  
  
“Mostly trying to summon ghosts,” Jessica said easily. “I don’t know why she wants to keep it so secret. Ghosts are super-useful for getting information from, you know. ‘Dead men tell no tales’ is something necromancers say so you don’t realise they’re making dead men tell them everything.”  
  
Sighing, the overlady tried to think through the fog of tiredness filling her brain. That didn’t sound so bad. Well, so bad by the standards of necromancy. It wasn’t like Henrietta was _killing_ people. Just desecrating the sleep of the dead. Which was still pretty bad, but… but… urgh. She just _bet_ that Jessica knew how useful that sounded. They were probably conspiring together.  
  
“Fine,” she said gracelessly. “But limit yourself to that. Understood?”  
  
“I understand,” Henrietta said. “Honestly, Jessica, why did you need to go tattle on me?”  
  
“Lying to her would just make her angry when she found out, Henri.”  
  
“I’m going to bed now,” Louise said hastily, before the discussion could continue. “Maybe Cattleya will have answers for me when I wake up. Or at least will have got over her snit about having to interrogate a man.”  
  
“Uh,” said Jessica. “When you say you told her to ‘interrogate’ someone…”  
  
“I just told her to use her vampiric gifts.” Louise paused. “You know, like how she persuaded that noblewoman to help her.”  
  
“…” said Jessica, or rather didn’t say. “Did she take being ordered to do it well?”  
  
“No, she was very pouty,” Louise said with another yawn. “I’m sorry, but I’m falling asleep on my feet here and the magical tie to the main tower will collapse when that happens. We really must talk later.”

* * *

Louise’s sleep was disturbed. She dreamed of the rocks falling down from on high. She dreamed of the mangled bodies, half-buried without ceremony. But most of all, she dreamed of the visions of one of her many predecessors, and that terrible searing light that had killed the horrible vile woman. It hadn’t taken very long, but it had hurt terribly.  
  
It was still dark when she woke, feeling groggy and ill-tempered. Matters weren’t helped when she accidentally backhanded herself across the face with a steel glove when trying to rub her tired eyes. Feeling dazed, she glared at her disobedient hand. She had forgotten to take off her left gauntlet when she went to bed. That had to be the reason she was wearing it. It wasn’t that someone had snuck into her room when she was asleep and slipped it onto her hand. Oh, it wasn’t that no one would do that sort of thing, because Gnarl not only would but almost certainly had. But he wasn’t here right now.  
  
Hmm. Unless he could teleport. She wouldn’t put it past him. She was definitely sure he was hiding tricks from her.  
  
As a result, it was a none-too-happy dark overlady of wicked machinations who went to check with her sister to see if she had found what she needed from the lord of Jiazha.  
  
“Harrumph!”  
  
“Hmm?” Louise rubbed her eyes, this time without steel in the way. “What was that, Catt?”  
  
“I said,” Cattleya said quite deliberately, eyes glowing a faint red, “harrumph!” She flopped out on a cushion-covered bench, back of one hand pressed against her brow. “Harrumph!”  
  
“It is the morning, dearest sister,” Louise said, resorting to sarcasm, “and I did not sleep well. I cannot discern your intent just from you saying ‘harrumph’.”  
  
“Very well. I _told_ you I didn’t want to do this!” Cattleya said sulkily. She crossed her arms and pouted, with a hint of fang. “I didn’t want to do this! I didn’t w-w-want to sully myself with a man!” she said, lips wobbling.  
  
“I just told you to crush his will with your evil vampire magic,” Louise protested. “It wasn’t anything improper to do!” She considered her sentence. “For a vampire, that is.”  
  
Cattleya gave an extravagant sigh. “You’re so cruel and domineering, little sister! Think of the sacrifices I make for you! I d-defiled my virtue to exchange such an intimate gaze with some strange man – not even my fiancé!”  
  
“Cattleya…”  
  
“You don’t understand how sensitive and intimate such things are to a vampire! To touch another’s will, to feed off their blood – it is something private and emotional, a tender embrace which—”  
  
A glare from Louise cut her off. “You pounce on soldiers and drain then,” her sister said acidly.  
  
“That’s… that’s… it’s not the same. That’s just… that’s just drinking! That’s entirely different from subjugating his will through the dark allure of my eyes!” But the admission had done critical damage to her position, and she knew it. “Well… fine! Very well! I hypnotised him! I dominated his will and made him tell me everything he knows and yes, there is a secret passage into Goicang and as one of the lords he knows the way to access it. You were right! Are you content?!”  
  
Louise looked at her sister. She was shooting sidelong glances at her, and her lip was wobbling in a way which didn’t look entirely feigned, though it did look somewhat exaggerated. “Yes, thank you,” she said more gently. “Did he say something? Did he try to hurt you?” She considered the status of the lord of Jiazha. “Uh, with his one unbroken limb, I suppose.”  
  
“He said I didn’t need to do this and… and he knew there was some good in me,” Cattleya mumbled. “And his name is Mutik.”  
  
Pinching the brow of her nose, the overlady sighed. “Cattleya, there is good in you. You’re helping me. I’m helping the princess. And he doesn’t know all the facts. Emperor Lee wants him dead. I haven’t killed him.”  
  
“Yes, but… you did have me hypnotise him with evil vampire powers to draw the memories out so you could break into a holy place and steal evil artefacts…” Cattleya said dubiously.  
  
Louise had a very good reason for why she had her sister do that, and it only took her a little while to remember it. “That’s because we need to steal the artefacts so they don’t end up in Emperor Lee’s hands,” she said, crossing her arms.  
  
“That’s true, but…”  
  
“Oh, Catt,” Louise said, balling her hands into fists. How dare that little brat down in her cells make her big sister feel like that! “I do realise how bad it looks, but remember, we’re doing it for the best reasons. We have to stop the evil Council and to do this, I need to take down the Madame de Montespan. And she’s made a pact with an evil spirit, so we need to get the Athe-demon to remove its power from her.” She leaned in. “Or else they’ll kill Eleanore and I _will not_ permit that.”  
  
Cattleya sighed. “I suppose so,” she said, melancholy clear in her voice. “I... I… oh, I miss home.”  
  
That was safer ground. “I do too,” Louise confided. “Just one last thing here, and we can go back away from this cold lonely place.” She wrapped her arms around her room-temperature sister. “I’m sorry for making you do that, but I really really did need a backdoor into that place. And I know the magic there has killed a previous overlady.”  
  
“I suppose that does all make sense,” Cattleya agreed, wrapping her little sister in an embrace. “Oh, Louise. You’ve grown up.”  
  
Louise beamed. “I suppose I ha—”  
  
“Not so much height wise, or in the chest, but in other ways!”  
  
“… thank you very much, dearest sister,” Louise said eventually.  
  
“Well!” Cattleya flicked her hair, and settled her shoulders. “I’m going out to get some fresh air! And I’m going to try to forget all about this!”  
  
“The sun is up.”  
  
“I don’t care! I am going for a walk in my daytime suit!”  
  
Wearily, Louise let her go and massaged her temples. Hmph. Certain people who had inherited the de la Vallière feminine characteristics didn’t know how lucky they were! Disgraceful! Just disgraceful!  
  
Crossing her arms over her chest, Louise sighed deeply. She was eighteen. She had to face the facts now. The past two years might have been a little kinder, but… but at least she’d never have to worry about armour being too tight around the chest. She was built like Eleanore, and this probably wasn’t about to change. Mother had been the same, until she’d had children – and _that_ wasn’t about to happen. Not for a long, long time. If ever!  
  
Oh, she just _bet_ that Emperor Lee had a harem of overly endowed floozies! She just bet it! Men!  
  
Wait, no. This was Emperor Lee, she thought, feeling slightly better. He had probably outsourced the Imperial Harem to the state bureaucracy and reassigned the women to doing paperwork rather than sitting around, being useless and pretty and… and eating grapes seductively or whatever concubines did when they were not actively engaged in concubining. After all, he had called her ‘not suboptimal’. She hugged herself. Maybe he’d call her that again after this!  
  
… but later. First she had to steal her own damned treasures out from under his nose because there was no way she handing them over to him!  
  
It occurred to Louise once again that perhaps her feelings about the Dark Dragon Emperor of Cathay were a little more mixed than was healthy.  
  
What had she been thinking about before she’d got distracted, anyway? Oh yes. Cattleya. Flouncing off. Ungrateful for what the de la Vallière bloodline had graced her with. Yes, that. Still, she’d got the passcode from the young man, and that meant that Louise had her way in.  
  
Now she just had to wait for the delivery of the special order she’d had Jessica place with her father.

* * *

Three to seven working days later, a sulphurous portal tore itself open in the courtyard outside the entrance to the lesser tower. A red-skinned demon whose face was covered in oozing boils emerged, walking over the de-animated frozen corpses of the minions. He was dragging a drab olive green casing behind him.  
  
Fully armoured, Louise swept out with her minion ‘honour’ guard.  
  
“Oi, package for the Overlady of the North aka the Steel Maiden,” the demon hollered unnecessarily loudly.  
  
“I am her,” Louise said formally.  
  
“Right.” He thrust a sheet of parchment and a quill pen. “Sign ‘ere to acknowledge receipt.”  
  
Louise scanned the form handed to her. “I do believe this is a contract giving you possession of my soul,” she said through gritted teeth.  
  
The demon made a mock show of examining the document. “Are you sure?”  
  
“Yes. Quite sure.”  
  
“Oh, my mistake,” he said, voice oily. “I must have ‘anded you the wrong document. ‘Ere’s the form indicating receipt of the delivery, from my lord S'kareyeon.”  
  
After a suitable inspection, Louise deliberately pressed the thumb of her left gauntlet into the paper. A burning brand marked its place on the paper.  
  
“Right you are, my love,” the demon said with quite undue familiarity. “I’ll be off, just my little joke, ain’t nothing meant by it.”  
  
Louise watched him go. If she was cruel, wicked and vindictive she might burn him alive here. It had a certain allure. Or perhaps she’d use acid. He deserved to suffer for trying to steal her soul.  
  
Fortunately, however, her common sense prevailed. She wasn’t going to kill him here. Neither would she hurt the slightest hair on his head.  
  
Nothing she could do would be as bad as what Scarron would do to him when she made a formal complaint.  
  
Cheerfully whistling to herself, Louise ordered the minions to move the demon-made device inside.

* * *

Only the slightest sliver of moon was visible in the sky above Goicang. An icy autumnal breeze blew down from the mountains, reminding everyone that snow was coming soon. Louise had no reason to delay, especially since the moon was waxing and she didn’t wish to be well lit for her dark deeds.  
  
Not that she was being very evil, of course. They were just deeds that had to be done in the dark, because some people might not understand.  
  
Somewhere on the other side of the city, Cattleya and a collection of entirely expendable minions were placing the demonic weapon. It wasn’t the most powerful thing that Scarron was selling, of course. That was really expensive. It certainly couldn’t break through the jade walls of Goicang.  
  
But, Louise thought to herself smugly, it was only meant to be a distraction. And she was rather hoping that they would be remember this night for a long time to come.  
  
Meanwhile, on precisely the opposite side of the city she was examining the exterior wall for the particular bit of ornamental wall that Cattleya had found out from the lord of Jiazha. Or, more strictly she was having the minions examine it, because they had much better night vision than her. Probably because they considered candles to be a meal.  
  
“Oooh!” Fettid bounced up and down in front of Louise, barely visible save by the glow of her eyes. “Overlady! I has found the hidden lever!”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
“Yep! It are just where the oversister say it are. There are a statue of a man with a ginormous cock!”  
  
Louise coughed. “That’s, uh…” Certain images of the nature of the ‘secret’ lever filled her mind, despite her best attempts to keep them out.  
  
“It are made of bronze and sitting on his shoulder. I wonder its eggsies taste like.”  
  
“You is dumb-dumb,” Maxy observed. “Cocks is boy-clucksies. They no lay eggs. But Fettid are right, overlady. The statue with the man with the clucksy is just this way.”  
  
“Yes, yes,” Louise said, blushing pinkly, as she followed Maxy. The tarnished statue of a monk with a cockerel on his shoulder and a demon’s head in his hand clearly meant something in the local religion, but she was much more concerned about the fact that many of the other carvings and statues on the exterior of the looked quite demonic to her. What kind of civilised god had a tiger head? It wasn’t a very _sacred_ holy city in her quite definite opinion. Although it was apparently still holy enough that Cattleya would catch fire if she stepped inside, which was to be avoided and thus that was why she was on distraction duties.  
  
Fortunately enough, the lever turned out to be the monk’s tongue. Once it was pulled, a hidden door slid noiselessly open. The minions produced torches from under their clothes, and the reds had a lot of fun lighting them. Then the forces of Evil penetrated the impenetrable city of Goicang.  
  
“What are this tunnel?” Maxy wondered out loud. “It sure are dusty.”  
  
“I is thinking they no is sending maids down here to clean up the place,” Fettid said disapprovingly. “The oversister would no like this place. Because she would be all burny because it are holy.”  
  
“I’ve sometimes wondered why minions aren’t affected by holy ground,” Louise said, mostly in Maggat’s vague direction. Her own gauntlet was getting rather warm and the air felt oppressive. She could tolerate it, but it wasn’t comfortable. And that was just her armour. She wasn’t literally made of Evil, unlike the minons.  
  
Maggat grinned, baring dirty yellow teeth. “It no are that comfy, but it not at all like being killed. Vampys and ghoulies and stuff like that is just weak when they is running around being on fire.”  
  
“I do that for fun. Being on fire are just part of life,” said Char, musket resting on his shoulder. “This are a place of un-urned priv-legs of the aristocracy and when the minions is free this are going to be a place what are for the triumph of the workers.”  
  
“Why are it un-urned?” Fettid asked.  
  
“’Cause there ain’t no urns around,” Maggat said soundly.  
  
“There’s one!” Scyl said brightly, pointing at a broken container of grave ashes. “I think this tunnel are so they can run away. Except now we is running in.”  
  
Annoyingly, Louise agreed with Scyl. From her mother’s war stories, many people liked to build secret escape tunnels. Louise knew not to trust them. Her mother had taught her that any escape route was also an invasion route, and that the knightly orders always made sure to scout them out before an attack on a villain’s lair.  
  
And this secret tunnel was quite… ineptly designed. It was clearly relying on its secrecy and hadn’t experienced an actual break-in attempt for a long time.  
  
Oh, certainly, here were a good number of traps and killing spells and the like which would have been problematic for most people trying to break in, but Louise had minions. Her screening curtain set off all the lethal traps only for the blues to bring the minions back raring for another go on the spike-traps or the flame-pits or the giant spinning blades. And things only got easier when the giant boulder dropped down from the ceiling and rolled down the passage, because the minions promptly started pushing it back the way it came.  
  
“This no are a very bad trap,” Maggat said sadly, as they walked over the top of shattered broken stone lion guardians whose war cry of ‘Shi shi shi shi shi shi shi shi shi shi—’ had been cut rather short when the boulder had flattened them. “I is thinking they has got all sloppy here.”  
  
“They no is keeping up with the imp-rovements in trap design,” Maxy agreed. “They no is using any imps.”  
  
There was a rather final crunch as the redirected boulder flattened two jade lions, which let off a hissing scream as their guardian spirits were released. Then it hit the end of the corridor, rebounded and flattened several minions. When the pancake-thin minions were brought back and the boulder smashed by applied force, it revealed a door which had previously been ornate and decorated with graven carvings of local gods. It still technically was, but the rolling rock hitting them at full speed had erased much of the fine detail.  
  
“Giant rocks is well useful keys,” Maggat said happily. “Ready when you is, overlady.”  
  
“Not quite,” Louise said grimly. “There’s one last line of defences here. Magical wards of terrible potency.”  
  
“Terrible pote ants sea,” Maggat said, stroking his chin and pretending to know what she was talking about. “Yes. Don’t worry, overlady. We will kill the terrible ants for you! Even if they is in water!”  
  
“I is gonna fish the ones out who is drowning in the sea with the ants,” Scyl said.  
  
Louise balled her left hand into a fist. She could feel the gauntlet pulse around her fist. It knew what was coming. Her de la Vallière blood pulsed eagerly in her veins, carrying her dark heritage. Reaching deep within her, she drew on that strength, that terrible boiling power within her. Words spilled from her lips in the Dark Tongue, guided less by memory and more by instinct.  
  
Other people would have to study for years – decades – to grasp these black magics. She was _born_ to them. Here, at the pivotal moment as raw power swelled around her and the blood-red gem on the back of her Gauntlet glowed like a tiny star, she could not deny it.  
  
Plus, she’d just had to walk down a _really_ long corridor having to listen to endless minionish stupidity and that was helping her build up quite considerable amounts of generalised spite at the world to fuel the spell with. Maybe that was what the first overlord had bred minions for. Just being around them built up low levels of negative emotions.  
  
Slowly, she raised her left hand, and placed it upon the door in front of her. “Break,” she commanded.  
  
The power surged from her. And jade cracked and shattered.  
  
Louise slumped to the ground in a faint. Sadly it was not an elegant ladylike faint, but instead sounded like a sack full of metal things being dropped down a flight of stairs.

* * *

Cattleya paused in what she was doing.  
  
“Ooo-er,” she said softly. “I _felt that_. What did you do, little sister?”  
  
The firelight was growing closer. It looked distinctly like it was coming from burning torches, and some of the long shadows had a certain pitchforkian nature.  
  
“Oh yes! Silly me! I shouldn’t get distracted! What was _I_ doing?” She paused and thought. Strictly speaking, she had planted the magical box where Louise had told her to. The fact that she was now somewhere Louise hadn’t told her to go, doing something that Louise would have probably explicitly forbade her from doing if she had thought of it, didn’t factor into things. “I was probably going to kill them all,” she said, conversationally.  
  
But something in her cold dead heart rebelled at that. Maybe she should be a little restrained. Only kill them if she was planning to eat them. Or if they were going to kill her. Or…  
  
… well, she jolly well hoped her little sister was all right!

* * *

“Oi! Overlady!” These were the words that brought Louise back to consciousness, along with a kick to the ribs that left her armour ringing. This must be what a bell felt like, she thought blearily. “We is done looting. You is gonna need to wake up, or we is going to carry you out. And you is probably going to feel that it are un-dig-knee-fried if we is gonna do that.”  
  
She only moaned.  
  
“I is gonna give her a kiss of life,” Scyl said. “It are a medically approved treatment.”  
  
“No, no, I is the famed para-more,” Maxy said solidly.  
  
“I’m awake!” Louise managed, demonstrating that at some point she had apparently learned to cast Levitate, possibly through channelling the emotion of mind-consuming terror.  
  
“See!” Scyl said, nodding. “The kiss of life are so effective that it work even when the kiss no are given. It are the uni-vertical _pan aux seer_.”  
  
“What that mean?” Char asked suspiciously.  
  
“It are Gallian. It means ‘bread with person what do future telling magic’,” Scyl said.  
  
“Wow,” Fettid said dreamily. “Kisses is so roman-tick and bad at healing that they give you bread and magical powers.”  
  
Louise blinked woozily. She hadn’t understood any of that, but that was just minions. What she did understand is that they said they had been quite busy looting the place.  
  
Leaning heavily on her staff, she made her way into the hidden vault. Once it had clearly been a beautiful place, covered in holy symbols and with shrines to the local gods all over, all to confine the powerful Evil of the relics within. Then Louise had unleashed her dark magics against it. The gold had melted off all the shrines, the wooden prayer wheels had ignited, and the sacred bronze statues of a meditating fat man had warped.  
  
The fact that minions had then pillaged the place and kicked in the heads of the sacred statues for looking at them funny didn’t help matters either.  
  
But at least there was a giant pile of Evil artefacts in the centre of the room.  
  
Well, quite a large pile.  
  
A medium-sized pile. If on the small side of things by the standards of things that were medium-sized.  
  
“Weren’t there meant to be more things in here?” Louise said shrilly. “They were meant to have lots… lots of powerful tools of Evil! Where are they?”  
  
“Ah, yes,” Maggat said, scratching his chin. “That are a bit of a bugger. I is guessing that they has been all thinky and they went and destroyed the Evil magic thingies whenever they could.”  
  
“They’re not allowed to do that! That… that’s cheating!”  
  
“Yeah. That it are.”  
  
Louise took a deep breath and tried to settle herself. Maybe… maybe there was still something worthwhile! Rushing forwards, she knelt beside the diminutive pile. Rummaging through it, she picked out a badly burned book.  
  
“Did you burn this?” she asked the minions.  
  
“No, no, no!”  
  
“Not at all, overlady!”  
  
“Not one bit!”  
  
“Y—”  
  
Maggat clubbed Fettid over the back of the head. “What did we say, stoopid?” he growled. “The overlady is liking books.”  
  
Fortunately, Louise only heard the denials and waved off the twitching Fettid as just more minion-on-minion violence. If she had to pay attention to such things, not only would it waste her time but also she’d have to see more minion brains coming out of their ears than anyone ever wanted to. Flicking through the book, she gasped as she realised that it was written in archaic Romalian.  
  
“Are it fun reading?” Maxy said innocently.  
  
“Uh…” Louise muttered, more to herself than anything else. “So, uh. Day 127,” she said slowly, tracing the words out with her finger. “Still in… uh. Still up this bloody cold mountain. Still having problems going… going where?” She shook her head. “Uh… Sasha is being… a very large dog. I’m sick of dry biscuits. Why are we still here? Haven’t we destroyed everything? I keep on saying, I could just get some dragons to fly us out but no, I’m stuck here with Sasha the very large dog. And on top of that, I haven’t been sleeping well. My right hand is hurting. I wonder if it’s the cold or just the altitude.” She shook her head. “I’ll try reading some more, but it just looks like it’s some hero’s diary.”  
  
“Boring,” Maxy observed. “That are just a bunch of heroes doing hero stuff. So they has already smashed up stuff.”  
  
“Looks like it,” Louise said grimly. She resumed her rummaging. “Gold, jewels… well, that’s something at least. And…” her hand brushed against something big and metal buried under a faded painting that hinted at horrors in shades of red and brown. “That’s a mace,” she said unnecessarily, after nudging the painting out of the way.  
  
“Yes, that are,” Maggat confirmed with equal lack of necessity.  
  
“But I don’t use a mace.”  
  
“No, you do not, boss-lady.”  
  
“I most certainly do not use a mace like that! It’s… it… the head bit is bigger than my head!”  
  
Maggat measured it up. “That it certainly are, overlady.”  
  
“I’m not sure I can even swing it!”  
  
The minion looked at Louise, her general scrawniness and the way that she was currently a little out of breathe just from spending time in her armour. “I are thinking that are so, overlady.”  
  
“What am I meant to do with that?” she asked rhetorically, and quickly answered herself before she got some stupid minion suggestion. “Well, I’m taking it, of course.” Stopping down, she wrapped her hands around the shaft and—  
  
_Hello again, old friend_ pulsed her gauntleted left hand and a surge of recognition pulsed all the way back up, kitten-warm.  
  
Louise collapsed backwards, landing on her behind with a heavily armoured clatter. “Did you just talk?” she hissed at her hand.  
  
“Yeah, ‘cause I said ‘I are thinking so, overlady’,” Maggat said.  
  
“Not you! My hand!”  
  
The minions stared at the overlady. “If your hand could talk it would be a talky handy,” Scyl contributed. “That are Germanian, that are. Handies is magical thingies that are talking over way big distances.”  
  
“Are it?” asked Fettid.  
  
“The gauntlet talked to the mace!” Louise shouted, before things could degenerated further into minionese.  
  
Again, she was faced with the disconcerting feeling of five minions looking at her like she was stupid. At most, she’d only had that with one before, and that had been Gnarl. “Well, yeah,” Maggat said. “It are obviously some overlord’s mace.”  
  
“The mental glovey and the big smashy macey are bee-eff-effs,” Fettid said happily.  
  
“What that mean?” asked Char.  
  
Fettid shrugged. “I dunno. But the forgemistress say it. I think it mean they biff things together.”  
  
Louise let her head sink into her hands. “Fine,” she said eventually. “Yes. The metal glove and the mace are fighting compatriots. Very well. Now, can we finish here and leave?” She wrapped her hands around the handle and heaved.  
  
Uh.  
  
She tried harder. This time, she managed to just about lift the handle, but getting the head off the ground was entirely beyond her.  
  
“Well… minions, carry it for me!” Louise ordered sulkily. “Time to go leave this stupid place!” She glared at her gauntlet. “And oh yes! I’m watching you!”  
  
Her left hand remained silently sinister.

* * *

Out they went, the minions carrying the rather small collection of loot, and then they silently snuck away from the high walls of Goicang. Cattleya was waiting for her at the designated point, on the high ridge overlooking the sacred jade city.  
  
“Yay! You’re alive!” Cattleya said gleefully.  
  
“Did everything go as planned?” Louise asked.  
  
“No, little sister, what you’re meant to say next is ‘Are you okay?’.”  
  
“Did everything go as planned?” Louise repeated.  
  
“Mostly. Ish. The bits you told me to do, they were perfect. My dearest sister, you are a genius at planning. The thingamabob is exactly where you told me to leave it and no one saw me!”  
  
“… so what went wrong, and why were you doing things I didn’t tell you to do?” Louise said, unfairly using her dark and Evil heritage to ask the questions that Cattleya didn’t want to answer.  
  
“Ah… well, I might have had to rescue two poor innocent maidens from a cruel, rampaging mob.” Cattleya gestured and two local women stepped out from behind a tree. “And I saved them! Wasn’t I heroic?”  
  
Louise folded her arms with a grating of metal, tapping her foot.  
  
“But! The mob was so cruel and vicious that they were after them because they thought the poor girls had been consorting with a wicked cruel predatory local form of vampire which looks like a rotting corpse and jumps around because its legs are tied together.”  
  
“Had they been?”  
  
“Oh, no. No, no, no. Not a chance. Why, I’d been with the pair of them all the time they were allegedly consorting with the wicked dead thing!”  
  
Louise let out a slow groan. “And when did this happen? I can’t believe you got in this much trouble in less than an hour.”  
  
“No, of course not. I first met them a few days ago. Don’t you remember?” Cattleya said, holding her hand to her mouth in shock.  
  
“No. I don’t.”  
  
“No, no, you must. It was very recent. It was after you cruelly and wickedly forced me to sully myself with the mind of a man, but before the explosives from Scarron arrived.”  
  
Louise thought back. Cattleya had vaguely said something about going out to get some fresh air or something. She hadn’t been paying much attention. Evidently that had been a mistake. “So… were you feeding on them?” she asked, glaring.  
  
“No! Well, yes. But they really liked me! And I’d learned the local language from Rutik, so I wanted a chance to practice it! And they were dreadfully unhappy here! The backwards locals considered them to be witches, just because – alas – they were trying to escape arranged marriages and one of them was pretending to be a man so people would assume they were husband and wife. And the fact that some dreadful, horrid, terrible person accused them of being with a dead monster meant that when I went to see them, they were about to be killed! Now, of course, I heroically swooped in to save them and—”  
  
“How many peasants are dead?” Louise reflexively asked.  
  
“None. Well, hardly any. A few. Only the ones that attacked me or tried to hurt the poor sweet innocent girls,” Cattleya said, making a well-prepared retreat through vocal terrain.  
  
Louise glared at her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”  
  
“I have hobbies of my own, you know,” Cattleya said, sounding hurt. “You might be happy with minions, but I need female companionship. And, also, I was hungry and didn’t want to kill anyone, so I had to find someone who didn’t mind me sucking at their neck a little!”  
  
Sighing, the overlady decided now was not the time for this argument.  
  
“I’m going to keep them as maids. They’re very friendly, and I’m teaching them Tristainian,” Cattleya said happily. “I am sure they will just get alone splendidly with my other maids.”  
  
“How many do you need, Catt?” Louise asked wearily.  
  
“A proper number to help me dress and undress,” Cattleya said innocently. “But enough about me. Did you find what you were looking for?”  
  
“I found some things,” Louise said darkly. “Less than I might have hoped, but I do believe I found the weapon of an early overlord.”  
  
“Hurrah!”  
  
“It’s… less useful than it might seem,” Louise said, gesturing at the mace.  
  
“A somewhat smaller hurrah.” Cattleya paused. “Are you going to set off the explosives?”  
  
Louise frowned. And then she smiled, slowly. “When did I say I’d bought explosives along?”  
  
“You didn’t?”  
  
“No.” Reaching into her breastplate, Louise pulled out a slip of paper and cleared her throat. “ _K’omarnd Kohde: Elf’ah Tsulu Naenaer Phoktraut_ ,” she read in the Dark Tongue, each incantation rolling off her tongue. “Rise!”  
  
Before the gates of Goicang in the distance, something glowed a spectral green-blue. An ephemeral torrent of wailing figures emerged, wailing in a cyclone of phantasmal energy.  
  
“Uh…”  
  
“Ghosts, Catt,” Louise said. “Lots and lots of ghosts. They should nicely fill the area with spectral horrors and make it quite impossible for them to pursue us. And also make it rather jolly inconvenient for Emperor Lee, too.”  
  
“But wait,” Cattleya said, frowning. “I thought you couldn’t send…”  
  
“Living beings,” Louise agreed.  
  
“Ooooooh.” Watching the torrent of ghosts, Cattleya smiled, showing a lot of fang. “That is awfully clever. Does that mean we get to go home?”  
  
“Yes,” Louise said, with a sigh of relief. “Yes, it does.”

* * *

And so a few days later, the windship launched from its minion-built cradle, sailing back towards the west. It had left some of the little goblinoids behind, to maintain the fortress and hopefully prevent any heroes from claiming it. However, silently Louise hoped that she’d never have to come back here again. They were leaving only just in time. The snows were coming early this year and there was a faint dusting of ice in the rigging.  
  
Rubbing her arms together, the overlady decided she had done enough dark pondering over her success, and went inside to the warm of her cabin to treat herself to a glass of wine in celebration.  
  
However, there was one person on the boat who was not celebrating, brooding, or doing whatever minions were left alone.  
  
Mutik of Jiazha, lord and master of one of the great three families of his land, lay within his cell upon this boat. Both legs were broken, and one arm too. He had fallen into the hands of the forces of darkness. Damn the Dark Dragon Emperor and his servants! No doubt he was behind all the misfortune that had befallen him! He was going to…  
  
…ow! He shouldn’t make violent movements, no matter how filled with rage he was at the wicked ways of the forces of Darkness. It hurt to move. And yes those vile-smelling blue-skinned creatures might have splinted his limbs, but the pain was still there.  
  
The only consolation and his only companion in this vile captivity was that pure-hearted and beautiful western woman who came to visit him. Not the dark and malevolent force of their leader, no, whose scowling face glared at him from under her helmet, no. But the beautiful woman with pale skin whose gentle eyes were the only respite from his pain and which let him see that kind heart that beat under her chest.  
  
He sighed at that thought.  
  
There came a knock at his door. Perking up, he tried to sit up as best he could with three broken limbs, which was not very well at all.  
  
A strange occidental woman entered his cell, dressed in black and wearing a long mantle. Her pink hair fell fetchingly around her shoulders. Her face was round and soft and in other situations he would call it kindly. But there was a strange feel around her – a paleness beyond that of occidentals like her, a certain rigidity of feature, a detached look in her blood-red eyes.  
  
Of course, because he was sixteen, the young man’s gaze was rather preoccupied with the sweeping vistas below the neckline. They were expansive. They were pale and perfectly formed. He would have used the term ‘décolletage’ to describe it if it was not a Gallian word that he had never heard before of and also that as a sixteen-year old boy it was sort of out of his cognitive range at this present moment.  
  
He sounded her name out. “Katorea,” he breathed.  
  
She reached out and carefully, gently put her fingers below his chin. With almost motherly delicacy, she lifted his chin until his eyes met hers.  
  
“Eyes up, Rutik,” she told him in accented, but understandable Cathayan. “And how are we feeling today?”  
  
In a ship full of horrors, foul-smelling monsters and a wicked and cruel servant of the Dragon Emperor who stomped around the place and shouted a lot, she was the only one who showed him kindness.  
  
He would see her saved from this dark fate. On his honour as a lord.

* * *

The autumnal leaves were falling outside in Amstelredamme. The canals were a particularly fetching shade of greenish brown, and the mosquitos from the fens were buzzing. Walking beside one of the cleaner channels, two women who some might have called old friends made their way to the jail.  
  
Of course, the people who called them ‘old friends’ clearly didn’t know them very well.  
  
And that was confusing Magdalene van Delft because Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Marquise of Montespan, was being uncannily friendly to her. That wasn’t something which had happened in a very long time. Not since the Red-Handed Sorority had ended so very poorly, with the _Affaire des Poisons_.  
  
It had been one of Magdalene’s first cults, and… well, if only she’d known back then what she knew now. At the very least, she’d never have let anyone bring up the subject of love potions. She should never had invited Françoise Athénaïs in the first place. Even if they had just been making up after a very awkward period which had begun with what had happened with them and Viscount Wardes in Roma and—  
  
“You know, it is good to see you again,” Françoise Athénaïs said out of the blue. She took a deep breath. “I remember when we were closer.”  
  
“So do I,” Magdalane said, guardedly. She stretched her shoulders, feeling the weight of the baby within. The next few months were not something she was looking forwards to. “Though there were good reasons for that.”  
  
“They certainly seemed like good reasons at the time,” the other woman agreed. She paused, looking out over the canals. “I must unreservedly apologise for my behaviour in the past. The dictates of power and the responsibilities of the Council have forced me to grow up.”  
  
“Not height-wise,” Magdalene said, before she could help herself. The madame de Montespan existed below chin-level for the statuesque Lady von Delft.  
  
Françoise Athénaïs laughed a little tinkling laugh. “Oh, Mag! You’re so funny!” She turned, hands on her hips. “I know Jean-Jacques had talked to you again, and once again you have turned down the chance to work with me. Please, think again. You’ve always been smarter than me. And this is for the good of Tristain. We need to know more about,” she dropped her voice, “the Abyssal intrusions. And I have always been more interested in vitalism.”  
  
“And wards, as well,” Magdalene added.  
  
“Oh yes.” Françoise Athénaïs smiled. “I’m very fond of wards. But really, right now I’m more interested in vitalism. I got my hands on some just fascinating papers on Gallian work on chimeric revitrification!”  
  
“Oh my. But… isn’t that forbidden?”  
  
“The Regency Council saw fit to grant the University the right to develop countermeasures – nothing more –to anything the Gallians try.”  
  
“Ah,” Magdalene said, not believing a word. “Well, I suppose that’s easy when half the University Council is in jail. Especially Eleanore de la Vallière. Thank you for letting me come along to gloat at her.”  
  
The Madame de Montespan smiled back. “Well, she is a deeply unpleasant woman,” she said brightly. “I like to think I’ve done everyone a favour. And I did want to re-establish our old friendship.”  
  
“I do recall the better times,” Magdalene said carefully, as they resumed their journey towards the jail.  
  
“Just remember,” Françoise Athénaïs said, pausing towards the gate. “My offer remains open. I will give you free reign to research the Abyssal intrusions, and if you still have a grudge – well, I’ll give you your own department and a position on the University Council so you won’t feel like you’re my servant. How about Eleanore’s old seat?”  
  
“That’s… very generous.”  
  
“Isn’t it just!”  
  
The university jail was a looming heavy stone structure within the grounds. Eleanore had been moved there on the grounds that the university had much more experience in containing dangerous evil mages than the normal tower. Indeed, through its long history it had frequently been the case that a good thirty percent of the mages at the university had been necromancers, infernalists, heretics, or some other servant of darkness. Therefore whenever the university went through one of its periodic housecleanings, it proved necessary to confine the miscreants before trial, or indefinitely if they had tenure. It also had lecture halls so prisoners could still give their scheduled classes.  
  
Door after door of heavy, warded metal clanked open and the two women made their way to the innermost cell. The high white walls were illuminated with gas lights and the enchanted bars crackled with windstone sparks.  
  
“Good morning,” came the voice from inside the cell. “You’ve come again, Françoise Athénaïs. What, did you drag yourself away from Jean-Jacques’ bed for my sake? I’m flattered, really, and no doubt he appreciates the rest.”  
  
“She seems to be in fine health,” Magdalene said drily.  
  
“Oh, and you’re here too. How wonderful. Let’s reunite the old gang. Do come in and sit down. Oh, wait. There are these enchanted bars in the way. I wonder whose fault that could be?”  
  
Magdalene bowed her head to the woman in the cell. Eleanore de la Vallière sat on the bench facing the bars, chin resting on her folded hands. Her spectacles reflected the light from the gas lamps, obscuring her eyes entirely. She was wearing a white linen gown, provided by her captors, and a Brimiric pentagram hung around her neck. Her smirk was one of utmost contempt for the world and most specifically the two women standing outside her cell.  
  
“You’re looking well, Eleanore,” Magdalene said as mildly as possible, as it would be the reaction that most annoyed her.  
  
“Getting by, getting by. Not getting out at all, but you know how things are.”  
  
“No, strangely enough. I haven’t been arrested and imprisoned in years. And that was a false allegation by the—”  
  
“Yes, yes, the comte de Foix. Why _are_ you here, Magdalene? Come to gloat?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“That was a rhetorical question. Of course you’re here to gloat.” She cleared her throat. “Why don’t you come closer? I hate to shout.” Eleanore smiled, flashing her teeth. “I don’t bite.”  
  
“You don’t need to. Your bark is plenty venomous already.”  
  
The smile broadened. “Oh, Madgalene. How I’ve missed you. Why don’t you offend Françoise Athénaïs and I’m sure she can put you in the cell opposite to me. It’d bring me great pleasure to see you there. All you’d have to do is call her out for the crook and fraud she is, and no doubt she’d imprison you too.”  
  
“Are you quite done?” the madame de Montespan said wearily.  
  
“Oh, of course. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of you coming along to just _plead_ for me to help you investigate how the Abyss is breaking into reality.” Eleanore adjusted her glasses, rising elegantly to stalk her way towards the bars confining her. “Oh, Eleanore, please do help,” she said mockingly. “I can’t do this on my own. I’ll make things easier for you if you help. Please, please, please help me.”  
  
“No, apparently you’re not done.” Françoise Athénaïs shot a sideways glance at Madgalene. “She’s quite boring, isn’t she? And not half as clever as she thinks she is. She didn’t want to help protect us all from the forces of the Abyss. Clearly a sign of her wicked nature, I’m afraid. Although I didn’t beg, I would like to say in the interests of clarity.”  
  
“Help me, help me,” Eleanore said mockingly.  
  
“Very boring indeed. Well, I must be going,” Françoise Athénaïs said. “Let yourself out when you’ve finished mocking her, Magdalene. Try to hurt this most unpleasant woman’s feelings, if you would. I have a meeting with my confessor and some of us actually have important things to do today.”  
  
“You have a confessor?” Eleanore drawled. “You? How could you have anything to confess?”  
  
“For your information, Friar Étienne Guibourg is quite excellent,” Françoise Athénaïs replied snippily. “I would recommend you a priest, but no doubt you would drive him away like you did poor Étienne.”  
  
“Why would I need one? I have nothing to confess,” Eleanore shot back. “I am entirely innocent—”  
  
Magdalene spluttered in amazement, shocked at the barefaced affront of that falsehood.  
  
“—of the alleged crimes you arrested me for,” she continued, glaring at Magdalene. “No doubt you would take requesting a confessor as a sign of guilt.”  
  
“You are guilty, and here you will remain,” the madame de Montespan said snootily, turning on her heel and leaving. The heavy metal door slammed behind her, echoing down the corridors  
  
There was silence in the room.  
  
Magdalene looked at Eleanore. “You do realise that isn’t Marzipan, don’t you?” she said. “She was far, far too nice to me on the way over, and even her insults don’t sound like her.”  
  
Eleanore gave a disgusted snort. “Of course I do. I realised months ago, when she stopped coming to gloat as frequently. I’m bored in here, not stupid. So how are you doing, my sweet cousin? I notice you’re either getting fat or you’re pregnant. I suspect you’d prefer the former.”  
  
Magdalene winced. “I see being locked up hasn’t softened your tongue at all.” She raised one eyebrow. “Although I notice you haven’t lost any weight despite the prison diet. In fact, I think you’ve put on weight – and you don’t have the excuse of pregnancy, unlike me.”  
  
“Hmm. Five out of ten. Predictable, and not opening any new lines of attack – though yes, out of boredom I have had my familiar bring me comfort food. So, Mag, I will merely point out that you’re a wicked and degenerate foe of all righteousness who is right to lurk in the shadows, given your taste in clothing.”  
  
“Three and a half, at best. You’ve used that one before,” Magdalene sniffed. “Incidentally, your toy boy has abandoned you and has now taken up with Pierre-Jacques. Such a shame for you, that you scared him off women forever.”  
  
Eleanore smirked. “If you believed he was my toyboy, you are sadly misinformed. Unlike you, I am capable of being friends with a man without bringing romance into things.”  
  
“Oh, poorly done,” Magdalene said. “Personally, I would have chosen to mock me for a loveless marriage, not bring up slander of non-existent affairs.”  
  
That produced a plaintive sigh from Eleanore. “I’m in prison, Mag. I’m hardly overburdened with fresh material that isn’t aimed at Marzipan. And I can’t aim any jibes at the spirit possessing her without letting it know that I know that it exists. So far it doesn’t even know that I know about it.”  
  
“Poor you. My heart bleeds for you. Really.”  
  
“How is your corruptive malignant cult subverting the morality of our nation?”  
  
Magdalene rolled her eyes. “As dense as usual, if you must know.”  
  
“You know, the fact that your cult is so useless indicates that there is still good in you. You know what you’re doing is wrong. And so you can still be sav—”  
  
“Blah blah blah blah blah,” said Magdalene wearily. “How goes being a figure of hate for the Regency Council and the supreme self-righteous bitch in all the land?”  
  
“Landed me in jail, as you well know.” Eleanore chuckled. “And incidentally, Magdalene?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Do tell your new mistress I want to talk.”  
  
Blinking, Magdalene tried to keep a straight face. “I don’t do such things with wo—”  
  
“Don’t act stupid. You’re not Marzipan.” The amusement was gone from Eleanore’s voice. “You’re now a servant of the overlady of the North. Well, an ally, at least. I might be imprisoned, but I’m not a fool. I might not know everything that goes on in this city, but I know rather more than you or Marzipan. So tell the overlady that I want to speak with her.”  
  
“She’s not in the…” Magdalene paused. “Oh, _bugger_. Now you’re going to be smug about me confirming your suspicions.”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“How do you manage that?” Magdalene hissed. “You are _literally_ imprisoned. How on earth do you have an intelligence network like this?”  
  
Eleanore’s lips curled up in a cruel smile. “I’m a de la Vallière of the main line. You’re just from a cadet branch. I’ve been bred to rule over Tristain as a dark queen, while you’ve been bred to be my subordinate. The Duke’s blood curse still chains you. There’s a little bit of you that _wants_ to be told what to do by me.”  
  
“You can pontificate all you like about that, but you were the one caught by Marzipan of all people,” Magdalene said bitterly. “Going on about ancient blood-ties of servitude doesn’t mean much when you’re in jail and I’m not.”  
  
“I wouldn’t be in jail if I didn’t want to be.”  
  
Magdalene sniffed. “That’s only true in the literal sense. She’s got you in a position where if you break out, you prove her right.”  
  
“And the fact that she’s now possessed by a powerful evil spirit indicates she had to make a soul-pact with a dark god or a demon lord or something to beat me. It’s the only way to explain it.”  
  
Shaking her head, Magdalene sighed. “And now you’re pretending to buy into your own self-aggrandisement, just to get on my nerves.”  
  
“Would I do—”  
  
“Yes. Yes, you would.”  
  
Eleanore chuckled. “Well, indeed. Now, away from such whimsical distractions.” She cracked her knuckles. “Your overlady has a personal grudge against the Regency Council. As I have them to thank for my current residence, I’m hardly well-inclined to them either. So I wish to speak with her. I’ll destroy her in time, of course – but right now I have bigger things to worry about.”  
  
“Why would she help you, if you plan to destroy her later on?”  
  
“Well,” Eleanore said, shrugging, “for one, that’ll mean she delays having me as an enemy.”  
  
“I’m still free, despite your braggartish words,” Magdalene said, eyes narrowed. She leaned back against the cold stone wall behind her, arms crossed. “Why should I take that so seriously?”  
  
“There are two reasons I haven’t taken you down yet,” Eleanore said. “Firstly, your cults are so inept at furthering the goals of Evil that I decided long ago that you were actually structuring them partly as a social club for bored young women who want to flirt with darkness but would rather not see the end of the world, and partly as a way to scam dark gods and demons while not actually following through on matters such as ‘selling your souls’ or ‘inviting their dark majesty into the world’.”  
  
“Go on.”  
  
“And secondly, being married to your utmost pig of a husband is far worse punishment than anything I could do to you. At least death would be an escape.”  
  
Magdalene sighed. “You make an alarmingly good case. I’ll talk with the overlady – although it may take some time. She isn’t in the country at the moment.”  
  
“Oh, I know that. That’s why her Voice is acting in her place.”  
  
“You’re good.”  
  
“Oh, I am Good.”  
  
“Not nice, though.”  
  
Eleanore smiled. “I never said I was nice, no.” She essayed a small wave. “Bye bye, now. Don’t be a stranger, old friend.”


	54. Nothing Interesting Happens In This Heroic Interlude

**Nothing Interesting Happens In This Heroic Interlude**  
  
The lights in the tavern were dimmed. Only a few guttering candles provided illumination, and the shadows danced on the wall as the wind screamed outside. The full moon was blood-red in the sky, peeking out from behind wispy clouds. The blue moon hid behind its sibling. A strange and arcane occult conjunction was occurring. It was a double eclipse; a time of great and present malignancy.  
  
“It was a dark and stormy night,” began the barman. The balding man leant on the counter, polishing a glass as he recounted a tale to the heroes within his establishment. “I was…”  
  
Montmorency narrowed her eyes. “Which night? Be more precise,” she demanded, hands wrapped around her drink.  
  
“Well… uh, it was last Firesday.”  
  
“It wasn’t that stormy,” she pointed out. “I mean, yes, certainly it rained a bit. But I wouldn’t call it stormy. And the red moon was almost full.”  
  
“Look, just hush! I want to hear the story,” Danny said, hugging his knees.  
  
“I’m just saying…”  
  
“Eet was not zat stormy, oui,” agreed Tabitha, without looking up from her book. “Zough ze weazer was poor.”  
  
“I don’t know,” Kirche said. “I mean, it was pretty windy.”  
  
“But not storm-levels of wind,” Montmorency insisted.  
  
The students had been given leave of absence from the Academy of Magic on the grounds that some madman was probably going to try to summon some unholy horror and the Regency Council had requested that they be ready to thwart whatever happened. With the murderous Overlady of the North still free and Albion cast into chaos and strange Abyssal rifts opening up, no one was safe. Lunar eclipses empowered the forces of wickedness and so the champions of righteousness should be prepared to strike them down.  
  
Surprisingly, however, things were being very quiet. For all that they’d tracked down and killed all the bandits who had taken up residence in the old temple to a forgotten god built next to a statue to a fish-god and on top a cairn containing a pre-Brimiric warlord’s tomb, they hadn’t actually found anything. Montmorency had complained about how it seemed like every hillock in the fens near Amstrelldamme was covered in cursed ritual sites, but she said that sort of thing a lot.  
  
Anyway, they had pillaged some of the ancient cairns and taken the tarnished grave-gold and then slain the undead horrors that had come to thwart the desecration of their unholy tombs, so she’d cheered up a bit.  
  
“Look, are you going to stop blathering on and let me finish my story?” the barkeeper said irritably, as he polished a mug. He was twitching faintly, and from his big red nose he looked like he might have been his own best customer.  
  
“Of course, innkeeper,” Guiche said amicably. “I apologise with a full-heart for my companions’ behaviour.”  
  
The man nodded. “Thank’e kindly. Now, it was a dark and,” he glared at Monmon, “rainy night. I was heading to the old cemetery built on top of the orcish sacred lands, to lay flowers for my father who died mysteriously twenty years ago. I was just passing the Tree of Suicides where Rikkert the Necromancer killed himself after the battle of the Fens when…”  
  
“That sounds implausible,” Montmorency said.  
  
Kirche poked her. “Stop that!”  
  
“What? No one would build a cemetery on top of orcish sacred lands. No one wants orcish zombies. Or angry alive orcs. And another thing…” she began, before Kirche clipped her over the back of the head.  
  
“When a carriage clattered past, travelling at full speed,” the innkeeper continued desperately. “And who did I see but Mr Slager the butcher, Miss Bakker the baker and Miss Kandelaar-Maker the candlestick maker in the carriage? They were all wearing full black robes, too! Covered in evil-like writing!”  
  
“Gosh!” Danny said. “I bet something’s happening! Has anyone been kidnapped recently?”  
  
The innkeeper sucked in air between his teeth. “Now, it’s funny you mention that,” he said, “but I heard that Young Rikkert and Elsabeth went missing yesterday. He’s the most handsome young man and she’s the most beautiful young lady from all around.”  
  
Kirche’s ears perked up at the mention of ‘handsome young man’. “Well, that sounds just dreadful,” she said thoughtfully, stroking her chin. “And we do have separate rooms here…”  
  
“Huh?” Danny said.  
  
“Just thinking out loud. But,” Kirche continued, “I think this might be a suspicious ritual! Possibly involving human sacrifice of some handsome young man! Oh, and a girl too. Thank you very much, innskeeper! Do you have a map to this place?”  
  
“I think I have something around the place,” the fat man said, ambling off.  
  
“Kirche,” Montmorency hissed. “What are you doing?”  
  
“Monmon,” Guiche said, laying a hand on hers. “Of course we should investigate it. That’s why the Academy gave us time off, and a bloody sacrifice on the night of the lunar eclipse is something we should stop.”  
  
“We certainly shouldn’t,” Montmorency objected.  
  
“It’s all right to be sca-”  
  
“I’m not scared! I just think he’s a liar.”  
  
The others stared at her.  
  
“What?” Danny asked.  
  
“Oh, come on. That story was ridiculously overblown. I don’t believe it for a second.”  
  
“Look,” Kirche said wearily, “just for once, we’re not doing this for money.”  
  
“Of course you aren’t! Firstly, you’re disgusting. Secondly, in a backwater fen like this? How nubile – and I can’t believe I’m saying this – can the young men actually be? They probably stink of brackish water and dead frogs.”  
  
“Dead frogs? But we’re not that close to Gallia,” Kirche said in confusion. She sighed. “I suppose you’re right, but, still, no one wants some kind of crazy cult summoning something dark and malevolent.”  
  
“I’m not saying you can’t have ‘fun’ stamping around a bog,” Montmorency said, in a tone that suggested that was exactly what she was saying. “It’s just I’m not going and getting wet in such a… a contrived situation. If anything, investigating this inn is more likely to be profitable… uh, heroic for us. There are ghost stories about it. And I read rumours that imps have been seen in the countryside around here, so there may be a gateway to the Abyss concealed somewhere nearby.”  
  
“Well,” Guiche said, with a sigh. “If it is your wish, my rose, I will stay with you. What kind of a gentleman would I be if I didn’t stay here to keep you safe?”  
  
The girl smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “Now…”  
  
“Non. I am going. Zere was no mention of a ghost when we choze to stay ‘ere,” Tabitha said with a mild look of disquiet on her face, showing unusual amounts of emotion. “I will go. Zis place, if it is ‘aunted I will not stay ‘ere.”  
  
Kirche pulled a face. “But you know I hate splitting the party,” she complained.  
  
“Last week you ran off on your own to investigate a monastery,” Monmon said harshly. “And were out all night.”  
  
“I had to inspect them for signs that they were demonic cultists!” Kirche said, sounding hurt. “Father taught me how to check nuns for signs that they were in league with the forces of Darkness. Very similar techniques work for monks.”  
  
“Oh, really?” Danny asked enthusiastically. “Can you show me?”  
  
“It’s all about knowing where to look for hidden brands,” Kirche said wisely. “Who knows what demonic sigils or twistings of the flesh might be hidden under a cassock? Or what vile and lewd texts they might have in their bedchambers?”  
  
“You’re disgusting,” Montmorency mumbled.  
  
“Why?” Tabitha asked, frowning.  
  
“… we’ll explain when you’re older, Tabby,” Kirche said with a sigh. “In fact, you might as well get Sylphid ready. We’ll go after the cult, while Mons and Guiche look for ghosts here.”  
  
Tabitha looked over at the two of them. “Better you zan me,” she said earnestly.

* * *

But for all her protests, Montmorency didn’t seem to be very interested in investigating the inn for any signs of ghosts. After a perfunctory sweep where she didn’t even comment acerbically on Guiche’s heroic fight with a medium-sized rat that had got into the kitchens, she returned to her room, bidding him a rather firm “Good night”.  
  
That rather ruined the evening for him. He had been looking forwards to going around the inn and asking everyone who would speak to him whether they had seen anything unusual. His friends didn’t seem to get why he did that, and never grasped his explanations that he was a people person who liked meeting strangers and that on top of that, protecting commoners fulfilled the noble traditions of the Gramont family. But his worry about Montmorency’s uncustomary behaviour gnawed at him.  
  
So he said a mock-weary goodnight to the innkeeper, went to his bedroom, and locked the door behind him. Then he popped open the shutters, eased his way out around the edge of the building, and with a muttered incantation undid Montmorency’s latch.  
  
“Guiche!” she hissed at him as he slid in, closing the shutters behind him. It was dimly lit in her room, with just a single candle casting light. Despite the darkness, he could tell that she had been crying. She was dressed in her nightclothes, and there were several wet handkerchiefs scattered on her bed. It smelt strongly of her perfume. “What are you doing in here? Get out!”  
  
“Monmon,” he said. “Come on. I’m worried about you and…”  
  
“I’m worried about the fact you’re in a lady’s bedroom!” she snapped back in a furious whisper. The shadows danced across her face. “Just go!”  
  
“Hey, Monmon,” Guiche said. He was careful to sit not to close to her on the bed – and yet also not too far away. Also, it was fairly important not to sit on the drenched handkerchiefs. “Is something… wrong?”  
  
“I’m fine,” she said. “You’re not! You shouldn’t be here!”  
  
“You don’t sound fine.”  
  
“I am!” She whirled to glare at him, blue eyes flashing. “Can’t you believe a lady?”  
  
Leaning back on the bed, Guiche looked up at the ceiling. “You’ve been ill-humoured for a while.”  
  
“It’s a feminine issue,” Montmorency snapped.  
  
“I don’t think it is,” he continued. “It’s to do with that letter, isn’t it?”  
  
The girl froze up, skin paling beneath her spattering of summer freckles. “Can’t you believe me when I say I’m fine?” she almost pleaded.  
  
“Monmon,” Guiche said, shoulders slumping. “Is it… a family thing? They’ve arranged a marriage for you, haven’t they?”  
  
“You knew.” The words came out as a squeak.  
  
“Yes,” he admitted. “We’ve been going around with each other for a while and… I didn’t want to pry or know, but my eldest brother noticed and he asked some questions because he wanted to help. I mean, we’ve always been close and he… and… well. Some of the things came out.” His hands screwed up in the bed sheets. “And I was sure we’d have more time and that… that they’d wait until after we graduated, at least.”  
  
“I thought that too,” Montmorency whispered. “I thought we’d have a year or two. I’d calculated everything. With our current income, it was going to work. I was going to have _time_. And we… we could…” she bit her lip, “… I’d planned everything out. But… but… my father is a drunk. And can’t keep away from the card tables.” The last words came out as a whisper. “We’d be better off if his liver gave out now.”  
  
“Don’t say that!”  
  
“It’s true!” She whirled on him, fresh tears streaking their way down her cheeks. “He’s drinking himself to death and no one can stop him, but in the meantime he thinks he can win back the money gambling and he can’t! He’s going to die either way, but the longer he lasts, the more he’ll beggar us!”  
  
Guiche massaged his temples. “Can’t you get a priest to testify that he’s not in his right mind and can’t borrow?”  
  
“Oh! Let me tell you about priests!” Montmorency laughed bitterly. “Oh yes, there’s a priest. And he tells my father that everything is forgiven. His confessor swears that he’s in his right mind! That man dresses far too well and his pockets are always full!”  
  
Hunching over, Guiche sighed. “Monmon…” he began.  
  
“There isn’t a way out,” she whispered. “There might have been. If Father wasn’t a drunk. If my two older brothers hadn’t been killed in the war against Pierre the Black. If mother hadn’t died having my little sister and my stepmother wasn’t so greedy. But there’s no way out.” She glared at him fiercely. “It just drives me mad when utter… utter bastards from the high nobility call me ‘grasping’ or ‘selfish’. How dare they? How dare they? It’s easy to not care about money when you never have to worry about it!”  
  
“We can stop this!” he blurted out. “If you’d just said… but we can still stop this! We’re heroes! We’ve saved the country! We’ve stopped demons and necromancers and orcs and… and… Monmon, my rose, a mere moneylender or two is no—”  
  
Montmorency leaned in, placing her finger on his lips. “Oh, Guiche,” she said, her tone a peculiar mix of patronising and fondness. “You’re such an innocent sometimes.” She blotted at her eyes with an already-soaked handkerchief. “It’s very attractive, even if it’s a blooming nuisance when you insist on going and helping out random commoners for tiny rewards.” She leant in to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for everything. I suppose we really should have listened to Kirche. Think of all the fun we could have had.”  
  
He swallowed, Adam’s apple bouncing. “Uh…” he said dumbly.  
  
She gave a weak smile. “For such a flirt, you’re remarkably blind sometimes,” she said. “You’re probably going to make some heiress very happy someday. I wish it would have been me, but… but that’s not an option now.”  
  
“No, really,” he said, trying to focus. This close, the scent of her perfume was overpowering and he was finding it hard to think. “We can stop this! We… we can appeal to the queen! To the Council! We’ve served them both! The queen made us chevaliers! If you don’t want to get married, you can—”  
  
“Do what?” She rested her head on his shoulders. “Dishonour my family by breaking off a marriage? Leave them to penury? My father is… is a drunkard, but he’s still my _father_. He wasn’t like this when… when my brothers were alive. If I don’t get married… I have to. I tried to avoid it honourably, but I failed.”  
  
There was a long, painful silence. Guiche considered if there was anything – anything at all – he could say.  
  
“Do… do you know when they’re planning it?” he tried.  
  
“Probably by the end of next year,” Montmorency said. “I don’t even know who they’re going to pick.” She grimaced. “And that’ll be that for me. I doubt I’ll be allowed to keep doing this. Not until he’s got an heir and a spare from me,” she said with disgust.  
  
“Stop talking about yourself like that. Like you’re just a thing,” Guiche said, feeling faint. “Monmon, you’re… you’re the smartest person I know! And you’re our healer! And you outbarter merchants all the time! There has to be something I… we can do!”  
  
“Such an innocent. I _am_ just a thing. I’m something to be married off to save my family from the consequences of the actions of my idiot of a father,” she whispered. “What kind of proper lady haggles like a merchant, anyway?” Twisting, she pinched his cheek. “You’re a boy,” she said. “You get to go chasing after heiresses, and you get to win them. As a prize. Lucky you. You get money and on top of that, you get a wife. Girls don’t get the same choice. I’m the prize for someone who’s willing to take on my family’s debts in return for a title. Things aren’t fair – and you benefit from that.”  
  
“But…” Guiche said, his stomach sinking. “But it’s not my fault! You know I would propose, Monmon! I would! I lo—”  
  
“Not a word more.” Monmon paused. “It’s not your fault, no,” she sighed. “But you still benefit from it. Founder. I’m… I’m so flipping _jealous_ of Kirche sometimes. She gets to be a girl, but gets all the benefits of being male. It’d almost be worth being a Germanian if I got to do what she does.”  
  
Frowning, Guiche tried to focus in the wavering candle-light. “Are you really jealous of Kirche?” he asked.  
  
“Yes,” she admitted. “I mean, if I’d taken her advice, the two of us could have…” she trailed off, blushing. “Wait. Why am I telling you this? And why did I tell you that I’m jealous of Kirche?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Guiche said slowly. “Did I just almost propose?”  
  
“Well, you are wearing perfume. I don’t even know why you’d do that.”  
  
“… but I thought that was your perfume.”  
  
There was a long and meaningful silence.  
  
“It… hmm.” Montmorency coiled one lock of hair around her finger, twirling it as she sniffed. “I think there’s certainly some perfume in it, disguising it. My tongue feels numb, so that rules out Quickmatch or Silverflower. I wonder if I get my alchemists’ kit out, I can see if…” she tried to rise, and found that her seat was much more comfortable. “Hmm. Unusual lethargy.”  
  
“No, I can get up,” Guiche said, stretching. He yawned. “It is late. And… oh wait, no, I want to sit down too.”  
  
“Yes, you’re heavier than me,” Monmon said, sounding distracted. “That would match my expectation that anything like that would hit me harder.”  
  
“Why are we just sitting here?” Guiche asked, swaying from side to side. “We know we’re breathing in some alchemical reagent.”  
  
“Good point. There’s a good chance there’s a distracting element in it which means we can’t focus, which combined with the numbness in my tongue… aha! I know what it is!” she said brightly, albeit slurring slightly. “It’s aerosolised Draught of Swift Repose! It uses perfume-maker techniques to spray the potion in a breathable form and… oh, _poo_ , we’ve been inha—”  
  
“Montmorency! Mind your language!” Guiche said. “Now, what was that about inha—”

* * *

The innkeeper pushed open the door. The two heroes were sprawled out on the bed, fast asleep. Montmorency was snoring.  
  
“See, mistress!” he said to his companion. “Your plan worked! They never even realised what was going on! They just sat here, inha—”  
  
He staggered, collapsed and fell over.  
  
The woman behind him pinched her brow. “It’s so hard to find bad help on the surface,” she muttered to herself. “I told him to drink the damn antipotion.” Putting her hands on her hips, she glared down at Montmorency and Guiche. “I’m going to have to carry you off myself,” she grumbled.  
  
The two heroes and the innkeeper snored at her.  
  
Shaking out her reddish-blonde hair, she permitted herself a brief gloat before she began dragging off the bodies.

* * *

Guiche stirred. His head was aching, and his mouth felt bone dry. His eyelids felt heavy and sticky, like they were made of… of something that was heavy and sticky. Glue-covered lead, maybe. What had happened? He didn’t think he’d been so foolish again as to try to outdrink Kirche.  
  
No, wait. He groaned. There had been… something with Montmorency. She’d been upset for some reason. And… and something about a potion?  
  
“Okay, people, make sure you’ve got the lighting in place! Where’s the make-up team? I need the adoring extras ready to go on queue! Ts’amahantha, how’s the shot set up?”  
  
“It’s looking malicious, darling. Just malicious!”  
  
“Wicked!”  
  
Guiche cracked open an eyelid. The light was decidedly red, and from the blasted cyclopean landscape full of towering monoliths and ruined architecture of long-dead eras, certain conclusions could be made. These conclusions were only reinforced by the fact that the hordes of hell itself surrounded him, engaging in vile and abhorrent activities which for some reason involved moving around large mirrored discs and placing candles in strategic locations.  
  
“Blast it,” he muttered. “I’m in the Abyss again.” He tried to move, and found that he was tied to his quite comfortable chair. “Damn.”  
  
“Oh! He’s awake!” A demoness who looked nearly human save for her ram’s horns swept up to him. She wore some strange oriental robe in a deep red, combined with an obsidian tiara. “Dark greetings to you, Guiche de Gramont. I must apologise for you waking up right now. Things aren’t quite ready yet, so you’re just going to need to wait until the scene is prepared.”  
  
“I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage, ma’am,” Guiche said. There was no reason to be rude now, not when he was tied to a chair and didn’t have his wand. “You are?”  
  
“My apologies. You may call me Izah’belya, princess of the Abyss and daughter of the Queen of the Succubae. I had you captured. Soon you will see—”  
  
“I’d just like to make one objection, if you don’t mind,” Guiche said politely. “I don’t actually want to be sacrificed to some dark god.”  
  
Izah’belya blinked. “I’m sorry?” she said. “You seem to be under some misapprehensions as to my intent.”  
  
Guiche swallowed. He looked the demon up and down. She was certainly attractive in a rather lush, full-bodied way, with tanned skin, reddish blonde hair and rather Germanian-looking features. “That’s a bit fast,” he said quickly, voice rising in pitch. “I’d rather not… I mean, I don’t even know you and… surely there should be some level of courtship and… and… and if it’s all the same to you, I quite like my soul and I don’t want you to eat it.”  
  
The woman chuckled, a warm and surprisingly human sound. “You’re sweet,” she said. That did not reassure him. She might be talking about his flavour. “Actually, I needed your presence for my journals. That’s why I went to such lengths to lure you out to a place where my servants could capture you.”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“I’m launching a new journal, and your presence here gives me an exclusive. I’m thinking an interview, a full-page spread, a report, you modelling underwear…”  
  
“I don’t follow.”  
  
“Well, you see, with the success of my new villainous range which trials Oriental-Occidental fusion in garment styles – which is seeing such great success in Albion, I’ll have you know – I realised that I were lacking the market coverage in less conventional areas. By diversifying my portfolio and investing in nonstandard operations, I’ll be able to take advantage of the novelty factor and greatly expand my media presence in multiple sectors!”  
  
Guiche understood not the black words of the Abyss this mad demon was babbling. “I’m not selling my soul,” he said, on the grounds that this was always a Good thing to say to a demon.  
  
Izah’belya massaged her temples. “Look, I’ll dumb it down for you since you’re busy living up to the dumb blond stereotype,” she said.  
  
“You’re blonde too.”  
  
“… not the point. You are my captive. You will do what I want. And that means all the hordes of the Abyss will see this.”  
  
Ah. That was back on more understandable territory. “You won’t get away with this, you fiend!” Guiche exclaimed. “I’ll escape! And rescue Monmon too!”  
  
Izah’belya shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t care about her. Her media presence is slim. An interview with her isn’t worth much, and she’s not a valuable trophy hostage. If you cooperate fully and waive all claims to the intellectual property therein, I’ll release her unharmed.”  
  
Guiche flinched. His heart lurched, as he thought of Montmorency – so vulnerable, innocent and kind. He was aware that this was somewhat of an idealisation, but she was at least theoretically capable of being vulnerable, innocent and kind. He had to keep her safe. “Unharmed,” he said, gritting his teeth. “You’ll release her unharmed, in a safe location back in the real world, of my choice. And you won’t do anything like… I don’t know, strap gunpowder to her and say ‘ah ha ha, I didn’t harm her when I released her’ or cunning demonic tricks like that!”  
  
The fact that if he played for time, Kirche and Tabitha would probably show up was also a not-inconsiderable factor contributing to his decision.  
  
“… that’s not really a cunning trick,” Izah’belya said sniffily. “I mean, if I was going to do that sort of thing, I’d probably… wait, no, we’re getting distracted here.”  
  
“I swear I shall comply,” Guiche said, “for her safety. This I vow.”  
  
“Well, that’s uncommonly polite of you.”  
  
Guiche shrugged as best he could when he was tied to a chair. “Common manners cost very little, and as a gentleman and a noble, it behoves me to be polite to a lady such as yourself, and doubly so a beautiful one. Even if she should happen to be a dastardly succubus with no-doubt malign intentions. The sharpness of your thorns does not detract from the grace and elegance of your petals.”  
  
“Stop, stop, you're flattering me! You’ll make me blush!" Izah’belya paused. "Actually, no, what am I saying? If you feel the need to contribute with flattery, please do. But since you’re going to be cooperative, would you mind trying on some outfits? It’ll make it much faster for everyone if we don’t have to drug you every time we want to change your get-up.”

* * *

“I won’t let you get away with this!” Guiche shouted, raising his very shiny and utterly blunt sword.  
  
“Malicious, just malicious darling!” the artist said, her six arms working with tremendous speed. “Hold that pose! And Lady Montmorency, could you please look a little more like a delicate wilting blossom captured by the supreme forces of darkness and a little less… what’s the word? Furious? Irate? Murderous? Yes, probably murderous.”  
  
Montmorency stared with hate-filled eyes that promised wrathful vengeance on the demonic artist. Clad in a dress that somehow managed to imply many things without actually revealing them, she was tied to a sacrificial altar playing – as Izah’belya said – the role of the pure innocent maiden that the hero had rushed in to rescue only to be defeated by the forces of Evil. She had been gagged, on the grounds that she was being hatefully mean to the artist, who wasn’t paid enough to deal with people like Montmorency.  
  
“Izah’belya! We’ve got a problem! The blond one just looks angry,” called out Ts’amahantha.  
  
“No he doesn’t.”  
  
“No, not the hot blond one, the other one.”  
  
Izah’belya’s brow furrowed as she looked at the painting. “We can fix it in post,” she said, coming to a quick decision. “Just inkbrush it out at the same time as you’re removing the blemishes. Of which she has a great many.”  
  
“Got it.”  
  
Montmorency’s glare intensified at that remark, and she made noises that sounded a lot like bowdlerised profanities muffled by a gag.  
  
Her hands tucked into the sleeves of her gown, Izah’belya sighed. “And please, Montmorency, looks can’t kill. You’re not part basilisk. Try to be more like Guiche. Now there’s a hero who’s entirely reasonable and professional about things. And don’t stop posing or you’ll ruin the framing! You need to look both intimidated, but also determined to fight to the last against the inevitable triumph of Evil! That’s your motivation! How is the outfit, by the way?”  
  
Guiche grimaced. “It’s very… snug,” he said eventually. Given the sole garments he had been provided were knee high leather boots and tight white demonic underwear, that fact was evident to all the onlookers. He had been given a sword as well, but it was just a prop. His eyes flickered to the black-robed cultists gathering around the entrance.  
  
“I know it’s snug! That’s what it’s made to be. But how does it feel?”  
  
“Well… very comfortable, if you must know,” he admitted. “And the boots are a very good fit.”  
  
“Really? I thought… wait, no, Good language. So you’re pleased with them?”  
  
“I will never be pleased with the works of Evil and—”  
  
“Yes, yes, continue.”  
  
“… then, yes, these are probably the best boots I’ve ever worn. And this… this pair of unmentionables is well-fitting.”  
  
“They’re also slave-washable,” Izah’belya said happily. “Malevolent! I’ll have to consider using that quote on the advertising blurbs! Guiche de Gramont says, ‘These are probably the best boots I’ve ever worn’. How does that sound?”  
  
“Dreadful.”  
  
“I know!” She gave him a thumbs up. “You’re a maleficent model! After this is over, we’ll need to talk about future work!”  
  
Guiche tensed his jaw, but said nothing. He was waiting for his chance. With a meaningful nod at Montmorency, he glanced towards the sacrificial knife on the altar she was strapped to. She nodded back, squirming to try to reach it.  
  
“Please don’t move,” Izah’belya said, sighing. “And no, that sacrificial knife is blunt.” She gestured around the room. “This entire set doesn’t have a single sharp thing here. And I also made sure your wands are nowhere nearby.”  
  
Considering this, Guiche nodded. “I understand,” he said. And that was why he waited until Izah’belya approached him with a new outfit before throwing his prop sword in her face and grabbing her.  
  
“I’m a hero,” he shouted at Izah’belya’s underlings, “so don’t think I won’t hurt her unless you do exactly what I say! Go on! Untie Montmorency!”  
  
“So much for honour and your oath,” the succubus said bitterly as her underlings scattered and screamed. Only the artist stayed, still working on her paintings.  
  
“I saw the black-robed figures with knives by the door! You’re planning to break it and sacrifice us!”  
  
“That’s because we need a chanting cult for some of the later shots!”  
  
“A likely story!”  
  
“I’m going to give you one chance to let go of me,” Izah’belya said, jaw tense. “Just because I happen to be a succubus does not mean I like being grabbed.”  
  
“Do you think me fool enough to release a princess of darkness?” Guiche asked. “Go on! Order your servants to free Montmorency!”  
  
And then Guiche found that the succubus princess had a punch like an iron bar. He staggered backwards, wheezing. He worked his jaw, wincing at the pain. Izah’bleya squared up to him, fists raised.  
  
“Why’d you have to go do that?” she chided him. “Now if you know what’s bad for you, you’ll…”  
  
And then Izah’belya found that Guiche had been heroing for nearly two years and that while his punches might not have been the hardest, they didn’t have to be when they were aimed at her chest. She grunted, tears coming to her dark eyes as she clutched at her right side.  
  
“Now we’re even,” Guiche said grimly.  
  
“No we’re not! That was my boob, you asshole! Do you know how much that hurts?”  
  
“Because you’re a succubus? Is it your weak spot?”  
  
“Because I’m a woman! Men! You are going to _pay_ for that.”  
  
Guiche wisely and pre-emptively moved to protect his groin, which was just as well. With a speed which spoke of many ballet lessons Izah’belya’s foot lashed out like a snake. That warning counted for everything because he managed to get his hands around her calf. What should have been a crippling blow suddenly left her in a bind, and he took full advantage of it. Caught off balance, she was helpless to stop him barrelling her down to the ground.  
  
“When I said you were going to let me and Monmon go,” he growled, getting his forearm to her throat, “that wasn’t a request.”  
  
Her legs came up, wrapping around his waist in a steely vice. The unexpectedness of the assault, not helped by the hammer-blow of her demonic aura, forced the air from his lungs and that was enough for her to turn and twist. The next few seconds were confused and moderately painful for both parties, but it ended up with Izah’belya sitting on his chest, pinning his shoulders with her knees. Her gown was split down all the seams and the neckline now reached down to the waist, revealing a nasty-looking bruise forming on the right side of her chest.  
  
“What was it then?” she growled. Something strange was going on with her. While it was traditional for violence against a demon to encourage it to take on its true horrific form, her horns were actually shrinking. “If it wasn’t a request, what was it? I’ll tell you what it was! It was a little baby crying! What you are going to do is stop ruining my plans for you and…”  
  
Whatever she was going to say next was rudely interrupted when Guiche kneed her in the small of the back. His scrabbling attempts to get free managed to destroy what remained of her dress, but he couldn’t worm free from her hold. Somewhere in Guiche’s mind he realised that the texts he’d read which talked about how succubae were skilled at wrestling may have been speaking literally.  
  
“Look, I am hitting you with all the aura I have!” Izah’belya snapped. “I know it’s weaker than some, but come on! I am literally pinning you with my thighs! You destroyed my gown too, and I liked that gown! Just have the manners to stop fighting back!”  
  
“Never!” Guiche retorted, his resolve hard.  
  
“Give me strength! What do I have to do, take off my bra too? Everything was going according to plan and you are _ruining_ everything!”  
  
“Good!” Guiche tried to spit in her eye and missed. “I would never let you defile me in front of Monmon! My love for her rose outshines your dark power.” In the background, Montmorency paused in her attempts to get her hands free, turning bright red and squeaking. “She is the beacon I cling to in this wicked place!”  
  
“Oh no. Oh no. Don’t you _dare_. Don’t you dare get true lovey-dovey on me! Ts’amahantha! Fresh picture! I want a blackmail picture! We can remove the lingerie in post! Just get it done before he gets—”  
  
The wall exploded, collapsing onto Ts’amahantha who let out a squeak and expired.  
  
“Ah ha!” pronounced the dashing valiant rogue whose bold figure appeared from the dust. Hair flapping in the breeze, they postured on the rubble. “Vile wrongdoer, your days are at an end! Surrender, or I’ll cut you down where you stand through fire and passion!”  
  
“Yeah! We’re going to totally stab you a lot!” added a rather shorter, less dashing rogue who looked to be about twelve. “Give us back Guiche! Oh, and Montmorency too!”  
  
The dragon who poked her head through the hole in the wall and started to eat the crushed Ts’amahantha didn’t say anything. Neither did the girl sitting on her back with a wand in one hand and a book in the other.  
  
“Oh my,” Kirche said, her tone decidedly lascivious. “Guiche, what _are_ you doing?”  
  
“Being beaten up by a succubus who’s stronger than me!” he blurted out, trying to get his excuses in first.  
  
“And where did you get those boots? I _have_ to get me a pair like that!”  
  
“Not the time!”  
  
“How the hell did you find me?!” Izah’belya exploded, leaping off Guiche as her wings unfurled. She hung in mid-air, looking for a way out.  
  
“Zeir familiars fetched us,” Tabitha said, without looking up from her book.

* * *

_Twenty-three Minutes Ago_  
  
Out in the blasted fens, the light of the blood moon shone down on a foetid landscape. The hulking shape of a dragon loomed out of the darkness, on the edge of the circle of light cast by torches carried by young heroes.  
  
“Ah ha! Take that, foul beast! Oh wait, that’s just a trunk.” Danny’s shoulders slumped. “Kirche,” he whined. “There aren’t any monsters yet!”  
  
“There might still be monsters,” Kirche said.  
  
“The man said there were going to be monsters and there aren’t any monsters! Kirche, I’m boooooooored. We’re walking in circles! There’s nothing out here! Can’t we go back to the inn? My feet are wet and so are my breeches and I’m cold!””  
  
“I’m bored too, Danny. But we just have to endure the boring bit so there are monsters and then fun things can happen.”  
  
“Mole,” said Tabitha, nose still in her book. Very unfairly, she was sitting on her dragon and thus did not have wet feet.  
  
“Tabby, we’ve been over this,” Kirche said wearily, looking up at her. “Moles are not monsters. There’s no need to skin them or pull all the blood out of their body or—”  
  
“Non. Ze mole of Guiche, with a frog on its head.” Tabitha pointed down, without looking away from her book.  
  
And indeed, there was a mole half-protruding from the ground, with Montmorency’s familiar sitting on it.  
  
“Ah ha!” Kirche announced. “Surely this is some kind of message! Perhaps they’ve found something!”  
  
The frog croaked.  
  
“What’s that, Robin?” Kirche said, listening attentively.  
  
The frog ribbited.  
  
“Monmon’s been kidnapped?”  
  
Another croak.  
  
“And Guiche has been kidnapped again?”  
  
A ribbit.  
  
“They’re being held by a wicked succubus?”  
  
A concluding croak.  
  
“Uh huh, uh huh.” Kirche straightened up. “So, yeah. Monmon and Guiche’ve been kidnapped. Let’s go save them.”  
  
“Again?” Tabitha said in a bored monotone. “Oh non.”  
  
“Yep. Come on, let’s head back. Lead the way, Robin,” she told Montmorency’s familiar, as Guiche’s mole leapt up onto Slyphid’s back.  
  
“Since when did you speak frog?” Danny asked sceptically.  
  
“Dad taught me.”  
  
“Oh, right. Witches do turn him into a frog a lot, so I guess he’d learn their language.” Danny sniffed. “I don’t see what so many girls see in amphibians.”  
  
“Oh, I can think of one reason why you’d want a boyfriend with a very long and flexible tongue,” Kirche said, grinning.  
  
Danny looked blank.  
  
Tabitha tilted her head. “Getting pickles out of ze jars?” she suggested.  
  
“Yeah, sure thing, Tabby. Got it in one.”

* * *

“And so we headed straight here and found the portal to the Abyss which led to your hide-out,” Kirche said. “Now surrender, fiend of darkness!”  
  
“Oh, godblessit,” Izah’belya muttered. “I completely forgot about the familiars.”  
  
“A lot of people do,” Kirche said, smirking. “I mean, apart from Tabby’s dragon. Everyone remembers her for some reason.”  
  
Izah’belya focussed on the blue-haired girl riding the dragon. “Hey, wait a moment. Don’t I know you from—”  
  
Tabitha silently drew a line across her throat with her finger. So did her dragon.  
  
Izah’belya swallowed. “—from somewhere? Oh yes. You thwarted my plans in Versailles. We have only met as enemies. Curse your Goodness.”  
  
“Yeah,” Kirche agreed, “Tabby is good at thwarting the plans of Evil. You go, girl!”  
  
Guiche, limping heavily and rather bruised, had made his way over to Montmorency and started undoing her gag.  
  
“Guards! Guards! Izah’belya called out, falling back. The door slammed open and giant hulking shirtless demons came rushing in.  
  
Tabitha happened to the guards.  
  
“How about we talk?” Izah’belya suggested, a slightly traumatised look in her eyes. She had been close enough to get splattered with demonic ichor and the tattered remnants of her gown were now somehow even more ruined.  
  
“How about you go stick your head up a cow’s bottom?” Montmorency interjected, spitting out her gag. “Tabitha. Could you please—”  
  
“Non,” Tabitha said, slumped down in among the bodies. A strange and peculiar look of sadness was in her eyes as she stared desolately at one of her poniards, which had broken on the spine of a demon. “Zat was moi favourite.”  
  
“… fine,” Montmorency said wearily. “Then, Kirche, if you would be so kind, burn that flipping demon to a crisp!”  
  
“Oh, no, you don’t want to do that,” Izah’belya said quickly.  
  
“I think I do,” Kirche said.  
  
“Yes, she really does,” Monmon added.  
  
“No, no, you don’t want to do that. Because I have something you must know.” Izah’belya smiled cruelly. “If only you knew the power of the Abyss. Your father never told you the truth,” she said.  
  
“He told me enough,” Kirche said. “He told me the best two-hundred and seventeen ways to kill a demon. Honestly, I don’t think the Abyss has much power. If it had any ‘true power’, Good wouldn’t keep on winning.”  
  
Izah’belya looked vaguely nauseous. “No, I mean… not that truth. Anyway, it’s not like you always win! We get a good fifty percent!”  
  
“Then what truth?”  
  
“Kirche,” Izah’belya said portentously. “I am your mother.”  
  
Kirche frowned. “No you’re not. You’re my sister.”  
  
“Half-sister,” Danny said, keeping his wand trained on the succubus. “No _real_ brother or sister has tried to kill us.” He paused. “Apart from Lucien once, but he was being mind-controlled and got better once Father punched him out.”  
  
“Yes, yes,” Kirche said, waving away her brother’s pedantry. “Either way, if you’re expecting me to shout ‘No’ loudly, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. I could do it if it’d help you feel better, but—”  
  
“I’m your _sister?_ ” Izah’belya blurted out. “That’s… that’s impossible!”  
  
“Look in a mirror. You’ll know it to be true,” Kirche said, and frowned. “How could you not know?”  
  
“I don’t know who my paternal relatives are! Mother never tells us that sort of thing!”  
  
“Then what the hell were you trying to do?”  
  
“Distract you so I could run away, of course! I mean, I could sense we had some blood in common, but I just assumed you had some succubus heritage some way back because of…” she nodded at Kirche’s chest, “well, a lot of surface world noble families are related to us.”  
  
Kirche chuckled. “Oh dear, no. These babies are one hundred percent natural von Zerbst. Being descended from eastern steppes barbarian princesses does that. You’ve done nicely from that. No, you’re just another one of Dad’s bastards.”  
  
“There are a _lot_ of them,” Danny said wearily. “Remember the half-giant?”  
  
“Oh yes, I cut his head off. Or the ghoul. Burned her to ashes when she tried to eat me. Or the three different half-demons who’ve tried to steal my soul. All dead, too. Hint. Hint,” Kirche said meaningfully, glaring at Izah’belya.  
  
“Hint hint,” Danny added. He paused. “The half-dragon was really cute, though.”  
  
“Oh yes, she was adorable! Her tail was so fluffy!”  
  
Izah’belya took a deep and somewhat shaky breath. “This… this changes things,” she said quietly. “I… are you sure? I’m a von Zerbst bastard?”  
  
“Can we _not_?” Monmon called out, as Guiche tried to undo her wrists. “This is not the time for family drama and sudden revelations of parentage. Look, just kill her.”  
  
“You sound surprised,” Kirche said, one eyebrow raised as she firmly ignored Montmorency. “It’s blatantly obvious. It always is.”  
  
“It’s easy to see,” Danny contributed, likewise ignoring Monmon. “You’ve got the right skin colour and your hair is pretty much the same colour as mine. And the features match, too.”  
  
“Although the really big clue is that you’re clearly smarter than the average demon,” Kirche said smugly. “That’s a von Zerbst trait.”  
  
“What, really?” Izah’belya asked sceptically.  
  
“Our family has spent hundreds of years bordering the de la Vallière family,” Kirche said triumphantly. “And we’ve pillaged their ancestral home almost as many times as they’ve sacked ours. And our bloodline is still around, despite their recurring attempts to exterminate us.”  
  
“Sometimes they try to turn us into werewolves,” Danny said brightly. “We’ve got pretty good at shaking off the infection, though.”  
  
“Yeah. I really don’t get why they keep on trying that. Why would you want your ancient rivals to be turn into giant furry wolf monsters? Oh well. But seriously, how many other families can say that they’ve survived – and often beaten – the de la Vallières?”  
  
Izah’belya thought about that, slow realisation dawning in her eyes. “You mean that sixth sense I have for when my sisters try to have me murdered…”  
  
“That’s a von Zerbst instinct, that is,” Kirche said confidently, folding her arms. “Honed by generations of assassination attempts by one of the wickedest families in the world.” She paused. “Some of it may come from the demon side too if your sisters try to murder you on a monthly basis,” she conceded generously.  
  
“Gosh. Also, it’s more like a biweekly basis.”  
  
“There’s another von Zerbst trait. You look like you’re trying to smuggle a pair of cabbages under your dress,” Montmorency contributed helpfully and also rather snidely.  
  
“Montmorency!” Kirche said with mock horror. “Cease such ill-manners!”  
  
“Well, then, kill her and we can get out of here! Your family drama and the fact your mutual father slept with some cheap succubus tart…”  
  
“Excuse me!” Izah’bleya said, mightily offended. “My mother is the Queen of the Succubae and de-facto ruler of Hell, thank you very much! She is not cheap!”  
  
“Oh, my apologies,” Montmorency said. “So she’s an expensive tart.”  
  
“Yes. That’s more accurate.”  
  
“… you realise that’s a bad thing?”  
  
“When did I say I _liked_ my mother?” Izah’belya said, honest confusion on her face.  
  
“Oh, brother… well, sister, I can talk all day about that,” Kirche said wearily. “Mine is a weak useless soggy piece of bread who spends all her time fainting, going on pilgrimages, being ill in bed and… well, generally she’s a waste of space. Thank goodness I take after Father. I know exactly how you feel! They’re just the same!”  
  
“She tries to make me act like a girl,” Danny muttered.  
  
“Mine is the soul-eating queen of the Abyss who sets her children against each other, fighting for scraps of power so we’re too busy warring against each other to plan a coup against her,” Izah’belya said. She crossed her arms. “That’s not the same.”  
  
“Details, details,” Kirche said breezily. “It’s the same in spirit.”  
  
“Stop arguing and flipping well let me go, you sugar-headed other-flippers!” Montmorency exploded. “Or I will… I will… argh!”  
  
Izah’belya looked blank. “I’m… sorry? What did she say?”  
  
Kirche sighed. “Tristainian women are so repressed. Cool your horses, Mons. Guiche, when are you going to get her free?”  
  
“I can’t undo these knots,” Guiche called back. “They’re done up really tight.”  
  
“I know they are!” Monmon shouted. “I’m losing circulation in my arms and legs here! It is _not_ helping my mood!”  
  
“Danny, pass me a knife. Wait, I don’t need you to pass me a knife.” Kirche pulled one out of her boot.  
  
“They’re expensive ropes. Could you please try to untie them?” Izah’belya said, expression pained. “Look, like I said, this changes everything. How about we get off set and have some coffee?”  
  
“She’s trying to tempt you!” Monmon wailed. “Stop bonding!”  
  
“She’s succeeding. I am tempted,” Kirche said bluntly. “I mean, come on! It’s well past midnight. I’m tired. Coffee sounds wonderful, thank you.”

* * *

“My goodness,” Kirche said cheerfully, sprawled out on a strange amorphous seat that resembled a stalk-less mushroom. She swirled her mug, and took another sip. “This is marvellous.”  
  
“Really? Because it’s some of my personal… oh, wait, sorry, I misunderstood you there,” Izah’belya said. She had acquired a fresh change of clothing, and sparkled in lavender – even if she winced whenever she moved her right side. Compared to her half-sister, she was rather tense. Perhaps it was because Monmon was sitting in the same room as her, stroking her wand.  
  
“So you’re… twenty four?” Kirche asked.  
  
“Nearly twenty five,” Izah’belya confirmed.  
  
“Huh. So you weren’t even the product of Father cheating on Mother,” Kirche said in an utterly bored tone. “I was the product of Father impregnating a wealthy heiress whose family was powerful enough to make him actually marry her.”  
  
“I’m still kind of in shock to find I’m Blitzhart von Zerbst’s daughter, in all honesty.”  
  
“You and about a fifth of the population of the world,” Montmorency interjected.  
  
“Look, it wasn’t like kidnapping you was anything personal,” Izah’belya said wearily.  
  
“Oh no, she’s always like that,” Kirche shrugged. “Right, Danny?”  
  
“Yes,” he agreed. Danny jabbed his finger at Izah’belya. “And you won’t get off that easy, even if you’re yet another evil half-sister! You kidnapped Guiche! And look how badly beaten he is!”  
  
Guiche shifted uncomfortably. He hadn’t been able to put a shirt back on, because of how bruised he was. “She’s a lot heavier than she looks. Especially when she’s sitting on your chest,” he said. “And she punches like a mule.”  
  
Tabitha looked up from her book. “Mules do not punch,” she said informatively. “Zey keek, because zey are like ‘orses.”  
  
“Thank you, Tabitha.”  
  
“I zought zat you needed to know.”  
  
“Yes, Tabitha.”  
  
“Mules don’t matter!” Danny fumed. “What mattered is that Guiche is so bruised he can’t wear a shirt!”  
  
“Are little brothers like that?” Izah’belya asked Kirche softly. “Sorry, I don’t have any – and all my half-sisters usually try to murder me.”  
  
“Well, you are Evil,” Kirche said generously. “So how are things going with you? Me, I’m going to be graduating from the Academy of Magic soon, and… well, you know I’m also a Hero.”  
  
“Oh, isn’t that one of the prestigious surface-world places?”  
  
“Yes, it’s fairly good. I got kicked out of a few Germanian schools for one reason or another…”  
  
“You killed the son of the Emperor in a duel,” Danny said flatly.  
  
“That was not my fault! He challenged me and then tried to use a forbidden spell of dark soul-burning flame to win! What was I meant to do, _not_ deflect it back in his face?”  
  
Izah’belya’s face had taken on the usual air of faint confusion that tended to afflict people who listened to the deeds of the von Zerbsts for any length of time. “You know, I think this explains _so much_ about my life if this is what my father’s side of the family is like,” she said.  
  
“That sounds like fun,” Kirche said grinning. “Come on, do tell.”  
  
“Well, I mean, things have never been quite normal for me. Like, there was that time when I was fifteen when some of my elder sisters put an ancient snake-god in my dorm room to devour me.”  
  
“Ah, snake gods,” Danny said wisely. “They’re never as tough as they think they are.”  
  
“You’ve only killed one,” Kirche pointed out. “And it wasn’t very powerful.”  
  
“Kirche! Don’t embarrass me!”  
  
“I lured it down to the alchemy lab and used an illusion to trick it into devouring a cauldron of toxic waste,” Izah’belya said proudly. “It melted through five basements.”  
  
“Niiiiiiiice,” Kirche agreed. “And… uh, I notice Monmon is tapping her foot quite rapidly now.”  
  
“Oh? You noticed?” Montmorency said bitterly.  
  
“Yes. I did. I was just ignoring it.”  
  
“Well, stop bonding with her and kill her!”  
  
Izah’belya spread her hands. “How about we don’t kill me?” she suggested. “Instead I might propose a formal apology from me, and… your clothes are rather ratty and unfashionable, you know. And I’m sure that Guiche and Montmorency could tell you things about how very comfortable my styles are.”  
  
Guiche shifted guiltily. “It may be the product of vile demonic depravity but this does fit very well.”  
  
“Actually, it’s cotton,” Izah’belya pointed out. “No demonic depravity was involved. That’d make it too expensive. And Montmorency! Dear sweet Montmorency!”  
  
“Shut it.”  
  
“Would you not say that this dress of a poor kidnapped maiden is both figure-flattering and gorgeous to the eye? I’m particularly fond of how it implies certain things about your figure that are not, strictly speaking, true. Now that’s quality tailoring.”  
  
“I will maim you. With knives.”  
  
“Notice how she didn’t deny it.”  
  
“That is true,” Kirche said, stroking her chin. “It does look fantastic on her. Wait one moment, Izzy. Everyone else, team huddle.”  
  
The heroes gathered around.  
  
“Okay, I know what you’re going to say, but those are very nice clothes,” Kirche said quickly. “I think we could do a lot with them.”  
  
“She chipped one of my teeth,” Guiche muttered.  
  
“Look, I think there’s still good in her. I think I can flip her. She’s got so much Heroic blood that she’s already killed a snake god,” Kirche said, a note of desperation in her voice. “I don’t want to have to kill her. Sure, she’s a bit Evil, but only a bit. And it’s not like she really hurt either of you in ways you can’t heal.”  
  
“Well, I suppose, if we’re trying to redeem her…” Guiche said slowly. “That’s a noble goal.”  
  
“I don’t care whether she lives or dies,” Tabitha said.  
  
“Great. So that’s a yes from me and Guiche, an abstention from Tabby…”  
  
“Well, I suppose, if Guiche doesn’t want to kill her yet,” Danny said reluctantly.  
  
“Mons?”  
  
“I think you just want to save her because the two of you are getting on unhealthily well,” Montmorency accused.  
  
“No, not at all,” Kirche said, sounding hurt. “I truly believe she can be saved. But because I’ve been talking with her, I have noticed she’s very rich. So you know, we could always ransom her back to herself.”  
  
Montmorency gritted her teeth. She opened her mouth and closed her mouth. “Just let me at her,” she whispered after the internal conflict was resolved. “I got taken captive and dressed up in her depraved-yet-comfortable styles. I’ll take her for every ecu she has. I’ll bargain her down to the bone.”  
  
“Great show, Mons.”  
  
“Are you sure unleashing Monmon on someone when she’s in a mood like this isn’t a sin?” Guiche asked, concern in his voice.  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“My rose, I’m just saying that it might be considered cruel and unusual.”  
  
“Nah, not against a demon,” Kirche confirmed. “Pope Sadius II confirmed that any form of violence against a demon was religiously acceptable.”  
  
“Wait,” said Guiche. “Didn’t he keep his predecessor chained in a basement?”  
  
“Oh, Pope Masochismus VI felt that was good for the purification of the soul. Very holy man, very into penitence. He voluntarily withdrew to contemplate the divine, with the aid of the Scourging Nuns of the Barbed Dove.”  
  
“’Ow devoted,” Tabitha said, nodding her head.  
  
Montmorency cracked her knuckles. “Oh, she’s going to pay for this. Literally. Pay lots and lots. Quite apart from the trauma and the inconvenience of the kidnapping, there’s also the fact that my virtue was threatened by proximity to the creatures of the Abyss – which under church law is considered a mortal threat to chastity and so does not require any proof of ill intent – but there’s also the fact that she threatened Guiche’s virtue too. And then there’s time wasted by being kidnapped, she’s going to have to pay for that! And…”  
  
“I think she’s entering the happy place of money,” Kirche said in a stage whisper.  
  
“Shut up, Kirche,” Montmorency snapped. “You’re coming with me! Just in case she proves… resilient to my demands, I need you to make it very clear that she better value her life highly indeed!” She paused. “Tabitha, you too. Your dragon can threaten to eat her.”

* * *

And so it was that after much hard bargaining and occasional threats that a succubus would be eaten by a dragon if she didn’t do what they said that the brave heroes escaped from the hellish vistas of the Abyss, heavily laden down with treasure and with several new outfits. Kirche burned down the inn as punishment for consorting with Evil and also making them waste their time wading around in a fen, and then they set off, clanking noticeably.  
  
“So, we may not have stopped any great evil plot – even if we did destroy all her pictures of Guiche only in his underwear,” she concluded, judiciously not mentioning the master copies hidden in her bags, “but I think we all learned a valuable lesson here.”  
  
“That your father will sleep with anything with two legs, even the Queen of the Succubae, ruler of the Abyss?” Montmorency suggested.  
  
“Nah, didn’t learn that. I knew that already.”  
  
“Zat demon spines can break moi poniard’s point?” Tabitha said, shoulders hunched in mourning.  
  
“… well, yes, but…”  
  
“That succubae punch very hard and nearly dislocated my arms, so you shouldn’t grapple them?” tried Guiche.  
  
“Yes, that’s true. But what, I think, we really learned is that it’s possible to solve your problems by talking things out with your foes, rather than resorting to violence,” Kirche said.  
  
She was the target of four stares. Tabitha’s nose was in her book, so her dragon stared for her.  
  
“That’s what Guiche does all the time,” Danny said rudely. “You’re just happy because you bonded with our evil succubus half-sister.”  
  
“And made lots of money and got some great new clothes out of it,” Kirche agreed. “This was a brilliant night.”  
  
Falling back in the column, Guiche reined his horse in beside Montmorency. The lunar eclipse had passed and so both moons shone down upon them. “Monmon,” he began.  
  
“When we were drugged,” she said softly. “My memory of the conversation is all woozy. What do you remember of it?”  
  
Guiche thought for a while as they rode. “I don’t remember a thing,” he said, eventually.  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
They rode on a little further in silence.  
  
“I could maybe remember some of it. If you wanted me to put some more thought into it,” he said, voice low.  
  
“Oh.” Her shoulders slumped. “I… I don’t know if I want you to,” she said, voice cracking. “Did… did you… did you mean what you said there? In… down there. When she was sitting on you? All… wanton and lewd?”  
  
The red moonlight revealed Guiche’s blush. “I meant every word,” he said quietly. “Monmon, you are my rose – and like the rose, you have lots of thorns. I… I would hold you close for the rest of my life, even if it made me bleed.”  
  
“You… you idiot.” Her words were barely spoken, more mouthed than anything. “Why would you say that out loud?”  
  
He leaned back on his saddle, wincing from the bruises. “Today, I had a succubus sit on me and try to crush my will so I would stop fighting back,” he said, speaking to the open air and not looking at her. “I clung to the thought of you like a drowning man does to floating timber. To the thought that you were right there, watching – and if I did what I desperately wanted to, you would see it all. Because I did want to do what she said. I wanted to do everything she said. I wanted to lay there and go limp. But… you were there. Watching. You’re not as pretty as her. You’re… you know, not a lust demon. But you’re _you_ and what I feel about you… I know the difference between that and what that demon tried to fake.”  
  
There was a choked sob to his side. “You idiot. Why… why do you have to feel that now? Why do you have to _tell me_?”  
  
“Because it’s the truth.”  
  
Without words, Montmorency spurred her horse on, leaving Guiche trailing behind the others. The moonlight glistened in his tears.

* * *

With a sigh and somewhat of a flounce, the demon princess Izah’belya collapsed back into her exceedingly comfy swivel throne behind her desk. From her top-floor office, she could look over Los Diablos whenever she felt like it. She seldom wished to. Quite apart from the thick smogs and smokes that meant that visibility was frequently near-nothing, the general appearance of the aerial view of the city on a good day put her in mind of what happened when a goat ate something that didn’t agree with it.  
  
Honestly, if it wasn’t for the status she would have situated her head office somewhere a lot more practical and which meant she didn’t have a hundred storey elevator ride every morning.  
  
That had certainly been a day. Yes. Urgh. She had far too little coffee in her to deal with this. That was her journal ruined. And then there was that aggravating blonde girl with her damnable stupid ringlets. What kind of… of monster bargained like that? That girl was more penny-pinching than a blessed avarice demon!  
  
Slumping down, Izah’belya let the illusion of hooves fall from her feet, and slipped out of her high heels. And her feet were killing her. This was the price for looking so human that she could slip through most wards against demons and break bindings with force of will. Almost no one in the Abyss could design comfortable shoes, and most farriers baulked at the idea of footwear that didn’t involve hammering metal into your foot.  
  
Leaning over, she picked up one of the little bells on her desk and rang it. “Lilly, I need a black coffee and… and many things that are sweet and sugary! Got it?” she spoke into the chiming metal. “And I don’t care if it ruins my diet!”  
  
She had tried to find Lilly a job that best made use of her skills, but unfortunately she didn’t exactly have many marketable skills in the Abyss. While she gave anything she believed in one hundred and ten percent, one hundred and ten percent of a not very large number was still not very large. And when she’d tried to give her a role managing public relations, she’d run into the problem that Lilly wasn’t willing to engage in negative campaigning.  
  
So in the end, after she’d fired her tenth PA this year for general incompetence, attempting to betray her, and being incompetent at betraying her, she’d had a revelation. As she watched the corpse char, she’d realised that at least if she had Lilly do it, she wouldn’t have any more inept attempts to murder her.  
  
Placing the bell down, she put her bare feet up on her desk, pouting. After a little bit of brooding, she picked the bell up again. “Also, I need the current genealogical reports on the von Zerbst family and profiles on the currently active family members,” she ordered. “I’m pretty sure that blessed hero that just thwarted me was one of them!”  
  
Pulling out the agreements she had signed with each member of the group, she reviewed them while chewing on a lock of hair. Yes, she really had come out the poorer for dealing with them. But that was just a minor irritation. She could afford those losses. Indeed, she’d take them willingly for the truth about her father.  
  
And not just _her_ father. There were two younger succubae with similar features to her, human feet and very underdeveloped horns. Izah’belya was all but sure that they were her full sisters, and she always kept an eye out for them. She knew how hard it was to make your way through life when your horns were barely more than nubs protruding from your skull. Even though modern occultism had conclusively demonstrated that the ‘classic’ features were just a phenotypical expression of the underlying demonic soul which could express itself to a greater or lesser extent, people still believed the old rubbish that a succubus who could nearly pass as human was ‘weak blooded’. Pah!  
  
Blitzhart von Zerbst. Well, well, well. Her father had not only survived her mother once, but had come back for more at least twice. And, from what she understood of the surface, he was still alive. She’d never heard of someone enduring that. So much for ‘weak-blooded’. There were demon princes her mother had drained to shrivelled husks. Izah’belya had a pet theory her mother did that by lecturing them about how they were ‘too greedy and not lustful enough’ and ‘weren’t dutiful daughters’, but that might be just her own personal experience speaking.  
  
That a mere human would not only survive, but come back for more… she shook her head. What an indomitable man. She took silent pride in the strength of her newfound heritage, even if it was tragically Heroic.  
  
Her door bumped open, and Lilly made her way through, pushing a trolley. Momentarily distracted. Izah’belya took a moment to gloat at her success with the elf. She’d finally managed to get her to accept that spiderweb stockings and all that black was never going to work when she was plump and self-conscious about her appearance. Instead, she had coaxed Lilly into throwing out her entire wardrobe and letting Izah’belya replace everything. And that meant there were fewer handkerchiefs tied together with dental floss and more figure-flattering blouses and leather jackets made from the skin of the damned.  
  
Lilly still wore too much spider-themed jewellery and enough eyeliner to drown an imp, but Izah’belya’s dark schemes had not yet reached their culmination.  
  
“I… uh, well, I knew you’d had a hard day on the surface world,” Lilly chattered away, “so I made sure that your coffee was soul-black, which is just the way you like it when you’re suffering dimension-lag. You luckily just arrived when I had a fresh batch of cupcakes coming out. And I made albinis which are a new thing I’m trying out – they’re sort of like brownies only rather than being made from brownies they’re made from albino brownies who aren’t really brown but—”  
  
Surprisingly, Lilly was the best PA she’d ever had. Quite apart from the lack of murder attempts, she actually understood that when an up-and-coming ambitious demoness was having a hard day the last thing she needed was additional stress. She was fairly efficient at things like fetching coffee and actually cared about things like eco-friendly brands and getting the right kinds of milk, which mattered a lot when you were infernolactose intolerant and so needed milk from surface cows. They were not demons, despite having hooves and horns. That had confused all her previous PAs.  
  
Also, she baked really wicked cupcakes. And decorated them with little spider patterns and pumpkins with a frowny face.  
  
Izah’belya took her coffee thankfully. “Did you get the reports?”  
  
“Yes, they’re tucked under… um, oh, there they are, under the plate with the cupcakes on.”  
  
Extracting the documentation and brushing off crumbs, Izah’belya began to review the lineage of her newfound family. They were disgustingly heroic, all in all. Not only did they have hundreds of years of experience at thwarting the dark plans of the de la Vallière family and also stealing their lovers, but in between warring with one of the most evil families in Halkeginia and continually failing to die, they also found the time to run around the place slaying dragons, demons, and generally being walking disaster areas to the forces of Evil. There were a few werewolves and the like in the family tree, often due to de la Vallière conniving, but they were usually cured by… urgh, the power of love. Dark gods, the past few generations seemed to recover from lycanthropy after a few weeks’ bed rest!  
  
Swirling her coffee, Izah’belya sighed. Her heroic heritage was potentially even more embarrassing than Jez’sika’s. Well, she’d need to make sure this never got out, or she’d never hear the end of it from her gender-challenged cousin. She’d also need to watch herself for any heroic urges. That would be problematic, and might get her some murder attempts from her half-sisters. They did that anyway, but they might try harder if they thought they could get away with it by claiming she was going to betray the Abyss to the forces of Light.  
  
“So, uh. How b-badly did it go?” Lilly asked her gingerly, hovering by the trolley.  
  
“It could have gone better,” Izah’belya said, trying to look on the dark side of things. She remembered herself, and focussed back on work. “That is to say, I have devised a brand new business opportunity. I believe we can exploit the forces of Light through a diversified portfolio of accoutrements and fashion solutions. Through an amoral policy of fiscal maximisation and sacrifices to the demon-lord Kapetaal, I shall profit beyond measure, attaining a cross-morality dominant market position. Moreover, the public relations opportunities may allow a position for potential corruption of hostile interests and their subversion without excess risk or exposure.”  
  
“Uh…”  
  
Izah’belya remembered who she was talking to and rephrased her answer without invoking the Blackest Art. “I think we can make money by selling clothes and armour to heroes as well as villains. Their money spends just as well as anyone else’s. And if I get them thinking that I’m ‘not so bad’, they won’t try to kill me then.”  
  
“Oh.” Lilly shifted over to the desk, and started sorting books. “I g-guess that makes sense.”  
  
“Yes, it does,” Izah’belya said smugly. It was quite a bad post-facto rationalisation for everything. “And I must say, Guiche de Gramont was _quite_ handsome for all that he,” she shifted uncomfortably, wincing, “punches hard. Suitably corrupted, he might make quite a wicked consort for a while.” She tapped her finger against her lips. “Honestly, I could always try corrupting him later and try before I buy, if you know what I mean.”  
  
“Try… uh, b-before you buy his soul?” Lilly said, blushing bright red.  
  
“I suppose I could do that too,” Izah’belya said. “Hmm. I need to find you a consort, too.”  
  
Lilly contrived to redden further, until it looked like she was trying to blend into the sky outside. “Th-th-there’s no n-n-need to…”  
  
Quirking an eyebrow, Izah’belya looked at her PA over the top of her cupcake. “You’re in your forties and you’re still a virgin. Girl, you _need_ to live a little more. There’s more to life than baking and spiders.”  
  
“H-h-how d-do you know—”  
  
The succubus raised her eyebrows at that comment, the corners of her mouth quirking up wickedly.  
  
“I’m… I’m… I’m only f-forty f-four and that’s still young, t-too…”  
  
“Nah, I’ve seen your friends,” Izah’belya said knowingly. “None of them have your particular metaphysical state. You’re just repressed. And—”  
  
But what she was about to say was interrupted by the mirror on Izah’belya’s desk chiming. She glanced at it, and went pale under her tan.  
  
“My mother,” she hissed, yanking her bare feet off the table. Lilly squeaked. “Let down the drapes!” Izah’belya ordered, scrabbling in her desk drawer for her tiara as she threw up an illusion exaggerating the size of her horns and removing all the signs that she had only just got back from the surface and hadn’t had time to put fresh makeup on. “Eye-candy! Get in here!”  
  
A troupe of shirtless oiled-up hunky demons filed in, and started posing against the backdrop. Behind her, Lilly fought with lowering the drapes carefully embroidered with lurid imagery. Taking a moment to bite her lips to redden them, Izah’belya checked that Lilly couldn’t be seen from the mirror and then answered the call.  
  
“Oh, Izah’belya, darling,” said the Succubus-Queen, her face appearing on the mirror. The de facto ruler of the Abyss was a figure to break hearts. Her skin was as flawless as porcelain and inhumanly milk-pale. Izah’belya now knew she looked Germanian, but her mother resembled a race long since dead, slain six thousand years ago by terrible magics. Long artfully done blonde hair cascaded around her gilded horns. Behind her, powerful bat-wings filled the reflection.  
  
Of course, Izah’belya knew for a fact that there was a lot of magic and no small amount of surgery that went into keeping her mother looking like she was young enough to be her sister, but that was just one of the privileges of power. Someday she’d seize that much power for herself.  
  
“Mother and all-mighty queen,” Izah’belya said. “Your majesty, for you to speak to your humble servant and daughter is an honour I do not deserve.”  
  
“Of course you don’t, darling,” her mother said with an empty giggle. “But I just heard you were back and I had to just see you. Are you doing badly, my baby?”  
  
Izah’belya tried not to frown. She’d be scolded for giving herself wrinkles. She had tried to keep her transit off the records. Did that indicate that her mother had spies within her organisation that she didn’t know about? “I am feeling entirely malevolent, mother, and I am pleased to say that I am your majesty’s humble servant.”  
  
“Oh, thank you darling. By the way, I love the eye-candy. It’s so good to see my little girl paying attention to the things in life that really matters.”  
  
“Thank you, mother.”  
  
“But, Izzy, darling. A little birdy told me that you’d run into Guiche de Gramont and his little band of insufferable do-gooders. That rascal’s been a pain in the neck, ever since he first showed up. Did you know his genius and cunning in defeating Fouquet meant I didn’t get certain gorgeous little things I was hoping she’d acquire from the Tristainian Academy of Magic?”  
  
“Such a hateful hero,” Izah’belya said, dutifully. If she was to be quite honest, the story of how he managed to defeat Fouquet made him even more attractive – and since then, he’d grown up in even more interesting ways. “Indeed, mother. I have a malevolent plan to corrupt him and claim his soul.”  
  
“Such a wicked little girl,” her mother cooed. Her face hardened. “But no.”  
  
“No?” Izah’belya echoed. “M-mother? I… I don’t understand.”  
  
“Of course not, darling. It’s mother’s job to do the thinking. You just need to do what mother tells you to. Izzy, darling, you are not to involve yourself with Guiche de Gramont or any of his associates. I’m just so worried about you. He’s just too dangerous.”  
  
Izah’belya deliberately pouted. “But mother. I _want_ him,” she said as behind the mask of a bad little succubus her mind whirred.  
  
“I know you do, darling. But it’s for your own safety. A vigorous, powerful man like him – and his deadly female compatriots – might just be too much for you to handle. You’re only twenty-four, Izzy. You’re still mummy’s little girl. So you won’t go near him, or any of his associates. Will you?”  
  
With a grand sigh, Izah’belya met her mother’s violet eyes. “No, your majesty,” she said.  
  
“There’s my little girl,” said the Succubus Queen. “Now, Izzy, darling, next time I’m in town we’ll need to do lunch and you can tell me everything you’ve been doing. But I really have my next appointment soon,” she giggled, “and my, he looks tasty. I’m going to ruin him for any other woman.”  
  
“Yes, mother.”  
  
“Bye-bye.” The image in the mirror essayed a little wave. “Be seeing you!” Her mother vanished from the mirror, and Izah’belya slumped forwards. She was shaking faintly, as all the nervous tension escaped her.  
  
Lilly escorted the posing oiled-up hunks out of the office, then took off her jacket and wrapped it around her boss’ shoulders. “Oh dear. That was a h-hard one,” she said softly. “She was even n-nicer than usual.”  
  
“I know,” Izah’belya muttered into surface of her desk. “She only acts nice when she’s angry.” Hugging herself, she tried to repress her shivers. “I… I think I was a few poorly chosen words from her showing up in person. I’ve never seen her that furious before.”  
  
“Poor you. D-do you want another cupcake? You’ll need to lift your head up.”  
  
Izah’belya shifted so her chin was propped up on the desk. “Is your mother like that at all?”  
  
Lilly looked surprised. “Uh, well, she’s an, um, an elven lady. And my f-father is a S-Senator, so she’s always p-perfect and h-hosts his c-campaign dinners.”  
  
“She never implicitly threatens to kill you if you disobey her?”  
  
“Uh…”  
  
“What did you think ‘keep away from him for your own safety’ meant?” Izah’belya asked morosely.  
  
“Oh. Uh, no. No, um, implicit threats. She’d just kill m-me herself and have the h-help dispose of the body quietly because of the… uh, whole ‘Dark Elf’ thing,” Lilly said frankly. “It would h-hurt my father’s re-election efforts if there was a scandal about m-me, while a d-dead daughter is good PR. I remember her burying one of my cousins down in the garden because it was about to come out that he was the Starry Skies Killer.”  
  
“Oh yes, your mother is Good,” Izah’belya said. “I’d forgotten about that.”  
  
“So… uh. You should probably listen to your m-mother?” Lilly suggested. She paused. “You’re not going to, are you?”  
  
“Why would I disobey her?” Izah’belya said, trying to be calm. “I’m a bad girl.”  
  
Given the revelation that she was half-Hero, this entitled her to use Good language occasionally. When it benefitted her. Because she suspected that it wasn’t Guiche de Gramont that she was being warned away from. Plenty of her half-sisters had been lavished with praise by Mother for seducing various Heroes – and plenty more had been killed by their targets and Mother never shed a tear.  
  
No, what she suspected Mother was trying to keep her away from was her half-siblings, the von Zerbsts. And that made Izah’belya curious. Mother always worked to stop her daughters from finding out who their fathers were. She wanted them to consider themselves succubae exclusively. Was she so paranoid that Izah’belya might defect to the forces of Light at the drop of a hat? Just because she found out she was a von Zerbst?  
  
Pathetic. She’d corrupt all those heroes to her service on the sly and present it as a fait accompli. Her mother would have to accept it. She’d show her.


	55. Scientific Revolutions 11-1

_“Is it possible to use Evil to do Good? Of course not. The thought is preposterous. There is Good and there is Evil. Pretences like ‘I must sacrifice one person to Evil if by doing so I might slay a dark god’ is the kind of stupidity perpetrated by people who have by expediency and equivocation reasoned themselves into sin. If you want to slay a dark god, stop wasting time and just go out and do it. It’s not that hard.”_  
  
–  Karina de la Vallière

* * *

  
White flakes drifted down from the leaden skies over Amstreldamme. They blended with the soot from the many chimneys of the city, turning the snow grey and gritty as it settled on the city. Still, the children of commoners played out in the slush, using carrots and cabbages to make anatomically correct snowmen and women and generally displaying the various markers of the alleged innocence of children.  
  
Eyes narrowed, the body of the Madame de Montespan turned away from the window, twitching the curtains closed behind her.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she said to the Archbishop of Amstreldamme, “but there’s really no two ways about it. I know it’s a tradition for the grand celebrations of the Silver Pentecost to be held in the Great Hall of the university, but the entire hall is being repaired. The forces of Evil caused so much damage in their recent incursion, you know.”  
  
They certainly had. She’d called up those demons herself, and they’d known damn well to wreck the place if they knew what was bad for them.  
  
“It is such a tragedy,” the querulous old man said, running a hand through his wispy white hair. “But this is not the first time that the sacred festival has been interrupted by the forces of darkness. I shall conduct it myself in the university grounds.”  
  
“I couldn’t possibly allow that,” Baelogi said, her face a smiling mask. “Your health is too fragile for the cold! It’s snowing!”  
  
“Don’t treat me like I’m in my dotage!” the hundred-and-nine-year-old said stubbornly. “I have given the Silver Pentecost benediction here every year for fifty years, no matter how often demons, witches, warlocks, overlords, dark angels, succubae, incubi, and the other profane beings of the Abyss try to stop it!”  
  
“Your faith does you credit,” she said kindly. “If you are sure…”  
  
“I am!”  
  
“Then I shall make the arrangements.” She smiled at him. “Take care on your way home. There’s ice everywhere, and I long to hear your homilies.”  
  
After small talk, the archbishop made his leave. Returning to her window, face scowling now, she watched the old man limp his way down across the university grounds, heading for his coach. He paused to pet a white bird and feed it some bread, and animals followed in his wake. Even though cats and mice were in close proximity, none raised a paw against another.  
  
Raising her wand, Baelogi muttered a curse, and the snow on the pavement beneath the holy man’s feet transmuted to ice. Down he went, with a snap that was audible even from this distance.  
  
That cheered her up a lot. That sounded like both hips, and probably his wrists too. “Hah! Show me your smug self-righteous pontification now!” she muttered. Holier-than-thou Good sorts like him made her physically sick.  
  
Now, his replacement would be much less amenable to giving a four-hour speech outside in the freezing cold. And that would ensure that everything would go pretty much according to plan.  
  
Oh, Jean-Jacques would be so proud of her! He’d wrap his warm, strong arms around her and whisper tenderly into her ear and she’d just _melt_ from pleasure and his presence, so sweet and soft in this bitter winter and…  
  
Wait. Bless it all! Baelogi ground her palms into her forehead. That stupid woman was getting into her head! She was like… she was like a bad smell! Her crazed obsessive love clung to you when you’d just been going about your perfectly normal business trying to tear knowledge out of her soul for a certain pet project of yours.  
  
Sometimes Baelogi suspected she should just devour Francoise-Athenais’ soul. But there was no one who knew as much about wards as she did. She’d lose all of that – on top of not having her around to pass off her disguise. So, she would just have tolerate the mental _filth_. Filth like the Madame de Montespan’s _ceaseless_ desire to be impregnated by Jean-Jacques de Wardes.  
  
How repugnant! The very idea made her feel queasy! To have a parasite growing inside you, feeding off you and twisting your body – well, the rest of Heaven had shunned her back when she had invented parasitic wasps and that fungus that mind-controlled ants, so why was it acceptable when it was a so-called baby?  
  
Urgh. No. Not a chance!  
  
Although, Baelogi thought grimly as she swept downstairs heading into her workshop, at least she had been able to productively repurpose the urge to procreate. This building had once belonged to the theology department, and thus when she moved the remaining Good members to a new purpose-built campus-slash-prison-slash-torture-chamber it had proved a very useful facility for her. Given the history of Amstreldamme, it was already consecrated to most major dark gods and filled with dark energy.  
  
The dark, fleshy shape hung down from the vaulted ceiling. Cultists in full plague-doctor suits carefully tended to her growing project. The shape of wings could be seen in its cocoon. Sometimes it thrashed and twisted, forcing its attendants to jab it with windstone-tipped rods until it stopped moving.  
  
Francoise-Athenais moaned and gibbered and whining about all sorts of meaningless things, but Baelogi ignored her. Soon. Soon. Her grand creation was nearly ready.  
  
And then, when she was done, no one would be able to stop her. No one at all.

* * *

  
“Ladies.” Louise leant on the table, her mailed fists squeaking on the wood. “We are almost ready. The Madame de Montespan and the dark spirit within her stand no chance against us! We will stop whatever they are planning, and defeat them utterly! Amstreldamme will be ours!”  
  
The dark cult stared back at her. Their black robes cast long shadows over their faces in the candlelight. There was a general awkward silence, as everyone waited for some poor sap to ask the question that they were all thinking.  
  
Fortunately, Jacqueline van Rien obliged. “I have a question,” she said, raising her hand and accidentally knocking her sinister midnight hood back. A nervous, worried expression was revealed underneath it. “Is it really… right for us to be doing this? By which I mean, is it wrong for us to be doing this?”  
  
Standing beside Louise, Magdalene directed her attention towards the other woman, her eyes narrowed. “Please, Jacqueline. Don’t dance around your point.”  
  
“Well, Mag, we do pray to the Forces of Darkness. Isn’t it against our religion to be hanging up Brimiric decorations in the University? Won’t the dark gods get angry at us?”  
  
Magdalene leant in and patted Jacqueline on the hand. “Don’t worry about that,” she said. “I’m handling all of that. But just to be sure, we’ll make sure to sacrifice a few extra black cockerels to them and offer libations.”  
  
“I do like _coq-au-vin_ ,” Jacqueline said thoughtfully. “But I mean… we’re a dark sisterhood of cultists.”  
  
“Yes,” said Louise.  
  
“Well… um, a dark sisterhood of cultists shouldn’t take our relatives and gather in the Great Hall of the University, decorate it with Brimiric festival thingies, and sing wholesome family carols, I think?” Jacqueline said, confusion in her voice.  
  
Louise folded her arms with a clanking of steel. “Why not? You’re a cult. Gathering to sing songs to gods is what you do.”  
  
“But only dark gods,” one of the other cultists mumbled.  
  
“What if the forces of darkness get mad at us?”  
  
“They very much will! Athe gets really snooty about religious decorations!”  
  
“Friends, friends,” Magdalene said, spreading her hands. “There’s nothing to fear from Athe. Our contract with him expired and I’m not renewing it. He was going to move us onto a much higher rate, and none of us want to offer more to the forces of the Abyss than we possibly can. We’ve broken cleanly from Athe, and also from Anark who’s split from Femin and,” she sniffed, “well, I very much don’t approve of his principles. We’re instead worshiping Soshall the Heart-Red God now!”  
  
“Wait, we’re still worshipping Femin?” Jacqueline said, clearly getting even more confused.  
  
“Don’t worry, I managed to extract a rather improved new contract with her,” Magdalene said smugly. “She seems rather desperate for influence in the mortal world – and of course, she has a soft spot for all-female sects. I managed to leverage that into an excellent going rate.”  
  
“Ahem,” Louise said, raising one hand. She focussed her attention on Jacqueline. “Consider it this way,” she said. “Yes, you’re evil cultists, yes? But what you’re doing here and now will be pretending to be good wholesome followers of Brimir to distract the people who’d want to hurt you because of your beliefs.”  
  
Jacqueline nodded slowly. “So… you’re saying we’d be a black sisterhood pretending to be good women so we could conduct an evil scheme to overthrow someone who’s secretly possessed by a different kind of evil than the kind of evil we’re in favour of.”  
  
“That’s right,” Louise said kindly.  
  
“But what if people think that we’re secretly good pretending to be evil pretending to be good so we can conduct a good plan that’s pretending to be evil to overthrow the forces of darkness?” Jacqueline asked innocently.  
  
Louise froze up. She forced out a nervous laugh. “That’s so silly and complicated,” she said. “Who on earth would do something like that.”  
  
There was laughter from the black sisterhood.  
  
“Well, that sounds like something that Eleanore de la Vall—” began one of the women.  
  
“She’s in jail! She’s not involved in this!” Louise blurted out.  
  
“But when has her being in jail ever stopped her from—”  
  
“She’s not involved in this!” Louise said firmly, hands on her hips. “I’m the Overlady of the North, remember? You can trust me when I say that for years I have thwarted her efforts and caused her much grief and grievance – and no matter how hard she tried, she’s never managed to seriously thwart me.” At least, when you excluded getting me sent to my room without dinner, she added silently.

* * *

  
“You are an awful liar.”  
  
It was warm and quiet in the hidden library full of dark tomes. Louise and Magdalene were putting the final touches to the plans for the Silver Pentacle celebrations, away from the rather inept cult.  
  
“Why, thank you,” Louise said, trying her best to quell the churning in her stomach.  
  
“I wasn’t using evil vocabulary. You’re just not very good at it.”  
  
Um. “I don’t know what you mean,” Louise said, sweating.  
  
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Magdalene said. The light caught her glasses, covering her eyes. “I know who you are.”  
  
Double um. “Do you?”  
  
“Oh, do you really want me to go through the whole rigmarole?” Magdalene said wearily. “I’m not playing Eleanore’s favourite ‘imply that I know something about you and then letting you blurt it out’ game. I’ve _met_ you before. You must have been… what, four or five at the time. And a complete little brat, I might add.”  
  
Louise paled. “Err…”  
  
Madgalene smiled at her with mock sweetness. “I’m not from the main line – unlike you – but don’t ever make the mistake of considering me stupid,” she informed Louise. “I put a few things together – why I find myself obeying you without question, why I hadn’t heard of you before the summer before last, the mysterious vanishing of the youngest de la Vallière daughter, the fact that you’re petite, pink-haired, and have the temper of an Eleanore…”  
  
“I do not!”  
  
“You do. She used to be even more of a hothead when she was a teenager,” Magdalene informed her. “You’re a lot like her. Well, apart from being pink-haired and not needing glasses. And being somewhat nicer. You’re maybe at seven tenths of an Eleanore.”  
  
Louise slumped down. “That was cruel, hurtful and uncalled for,” she complained.  
  
“Why? It’s the truth. And I’m allowed to be mean. We are related, after all.” Magdalene pursed her lips. “And I suppose that means that Carmine is… well, it’s a small mercy she doesn’t call herself Ayelttac.”  
  
“… I had to stop her doing so,” Louise mumbled.  
  
“Ah, vampires. So cunning, so powerful, and yet so very, very stupid in certain ways.” Magdalene’s eyebrows fluted up. “She’s certainly filled out since I saw her last.”  
  
“I try to keep her on a diet.”  
  
“Yes, she has developed very… specific tastes, hasn’t she? Very fond of _le sang des femmes_ , or however you’d snidely imply that in Gallian.”  
  
“A taste for the blood of women? Part of being a vampire. She has to drink blood.”  
  
Magdalene stared at her. “Yes, that is what I meant,” she said eventually.  
  
Slumping down, Louise considered her next move. “What does this change between us?” she asked artlessly.  
  
“In all honesty? Not very much,” Magdalene said, eyes narrowed. “You got my pig of a husband out of the way, and… hmm, from your pattern of behaviour, I assume you wish to install Princess Henrietta upon the throne after you’ve suitably brainwashed her? Being an eminence gris appeals to me. And you’re clearly not a slave to any dark gods.”  
  
Louise squared her jaw. “Of course not! There are such things as standards!”  
  
“Quite so,” Magdalene agreed. “As far as I’m concerned, running cults is purely a business transaction. Certain offerings are made to the forces of Evil. In return, they do things for me. If they ask too much, well, that’s not acceptable. They think they deserve to be worshipped,” she sniffed, “just because they’re jumped- up fallen angels or demons. What rot. And many of them are so dreadfully ill-mannered – and I thought that even before you told me that they consider it entertainment!”  
  
Wincing, Louise sat up. “I haven’t heard of such a mercenary attitude applied to cults,” she admitted.  
  
The other woman ran her hands through her hair with a laugh. “I like money,” she said, resting her hand on her swollen abdomen. “And I like power and influence and control. I’d rather not end my life forcing some demon-god’s spawn out. A human child is quite bad enough. Demonic babies have horns, which,” she winced. “Ouch.”  
  
Louise sucked in breath through her teeth. “Ouch,” she agreed.  
  
“I suppose I’m just applying my talents from when I was one of the Three Witches to something more profitable.”  
  
“The Three Witches?”  
  
Magdalene adjusted her glasses, blinking. “Sorry? Oh, right. That was what they used to call me, Françoise- Athénaïs and Eleanore.”  
  
“You used to be called the Three Witches?” Louise asked dubiously.  
  
Magdalene snorted. “Well, only in polite company. Other people had a subtly different name for us. But yes.”  
  
Louise winced. That was over two Eleanores of mean in a small space. She felt sorry for their classmates. “That must have been… an experience,” she said diplomatically.  
  
“Honestly, if you can believe it, I was rather a shrinking violet back then,” Magdalene said. “Eleanore was quite a… bombastic and assertive personality, and I rather followed in her shadow. Of course, none of us were quite the classically popular sorts. Eleanore was a de la Vallière, my father had tried to usurp the Grand Duchy of Gunneldorf and was in jail, and Marzipan was… well, she really, really hated orcs. They killed her brother. She was obsessed with getting stronger and didn’t really socialise. So we wound up falling into each other’s company, and I suppose we were just prickly in self-defence.”  
  
Louise knew for a fact that Eleanore was very fond of self-defence. In fact, she liked to get her self-defence in pre-emptively. “Mmm,” she said.  
  
“And then there was Jean-Jacques,” Magdalene added. “He was tall, handsome, brooding and him and Eleanore used to get on really well. I suppose the fact that their lands bordered and they were childhood best friends helped matters.”  
  
“I see,” Louise said, bitterly. That dog! He’d clearly been flirting with her sister when they were young! Just to get his hands on her tracts of land! Curiosity ensnared her. “What was it like back then?” she asked.  
  
Magdalene sat back, steepling her fingers. “Why do you want to know?” she asked.  
  
“Honestly?” Louise said. “I can vaguely remember Eleanore coming back with lots of treasures, but I was tiny at the time.”  
  
“And a little brat.”  
  
“And allegedly a little brat,” Louise added with clenched teeth.  
  
Sweeping her long straight black hair back, Magdalene chuckled. “Well, perhaps. Your father made sure I saw a lot of Eleanore after my father was arrested for high treason. I think he might have been trying to expose me to what he thought was a good influence or something.”  
  
“But… Eleanore…”  
  
“I know! Although, in truth, as I said I was quite a shrinking violet. She was very much the dominant personality – and not all of that was because of the bloodline curse laid on my branch of the family by the Bloody Duke. I suspect I’d have always done what she said even without that. Even before we went to the Academy she was dragging me out to hunt down goblins.” She snorted. “We killed our first minotaur when we were nine. I iced over the ground and then Eleanore did a nasty little Air-Fire spell to set the air inside its lungs on fire.”  
  
“Gosh,” Louise said, vaguely horrified and also impressed. She wondered if she could do that.  
  
“And then… well, Jean-Jacques was a childhood friend of Eleanore’s, and Françoise-Athénaïs is a relative on your mother’s side and—”  
  
“She’s _what_?” Louise blurted out.  
  
“You didn’t know? She’s a third cousin once removed or something, I think.”  
  
Louise groaned, slumping down to the ticking of the clock. “That must be why people say she looks like me,” she complained. “Not that I do!”  
  
“Keep on telling yourself that,” Magdalene said smugly. “Anyway, the four of sort of inevitably fell into the heroing. Eleanore wanted your mother’s approval and just felt it was expected of her, Jean-Jacques was a wind-mage prodigy and your mother was tutoring him, I was going to basically do anything Eleanore wanted to do – and I was very aware of how tight money was – and Marzipan… well, she really wanted to kill orcs.”  
  
Shaking her head, Louise glanced out the window. “I can’t believe that you had a group basically held together by Eleanore,” she said, shaking her head. “How on earth could you stand her?”  
  
Adjusting her glasses, Magdalene leaned forwards. “I don’t think you understand. Or maybe you just don’t remember. Eleanore was a bit mean, yes, but when she was younger she was a good friend. She only went after people who deserved it, or who went after her. And she was… and probably still is… the most intelligent person I know. She’s brilliant, even if she makes enemies with how vitriolic she can be. She’s never tolerated fools, but when she was younger…” she pursed her blood-red lips, “… when she had friends, I suppose, she could be very charming. She’s still charismatic, but she only uses it as a weapon.”  
  
She looked directly at Louise. “You’re more like how she used to be than you think. Though she was a better liar. God, she lied all the time to keep me out of trouble.”  
  
Louise’s mind whirred. “And then she changed. When you were sixteen, yes? Perhaps after the summer holidays?”  
  
“You remember that?” Magdalene’s glasses caught the light. “Or have you realised something? Or both?”  
  
“I think it’s linked to how Jean-Jacques ended up engaged to me,” Louise said slowly.  
  
“Hmm. Really? I thought she was the only one of us who didn’t have feelings for him.” Magdalene smiled rather unpleasantly. “Of course, you’re going after him with all the rage of a jilted lover. Or should I say, a spurned fiancée? So perhaps you know more than I had assumed about the feeling of having him choose someone else?”  
  
Surprisingly, Louise found that she wasn’t blushing. Instead, ice tinkled from each syllable as her heart froze. “The fact that he didn’t even wait a season after his fiancée went missing before all-but publicly consorting with his mistress is something I am extremely displeased with, yes,” she said.  
  
It did not produce the desired reaction. “Oh, that’s adorable! For once, you’re managing to sound very arch! Do you practice that voice in front of a mirror?”  
  
“Be quiet.”  
  
“He is very handsome, though,” the other woman continued mercilessly, displaying the full and loathsome depths of her de la Vallière cruelty. “Do you want him to swoon when you address him in that tone of voice over the top of your fan? Or perhaps you’ve obtained a very lewd dungeon in whatever desolate location you set up base in, where you will do terrible things to him. If so, can I watch?”  
  
“… just shut up, Magdalene.”  
  
“Pitch perfect. You really are sounding like Eleanore at the same age.”  
  
“I said shut up!”

* * *

Gnarl the Gnarled, alleged trusted lieutenant and Advisor to Overpersonages, shuffled the paperwork in front of him with the honest enthusiasm which only came from doing something you loved. The reports made quite repugnantly malicious reading. Hordes of demons and monsters were running rampant over Albion, led by the queen of the Dark Elves and a number of exceptionally evil small children.  
  
What a time to be alive! Far worse than that last century he spent stuck in a cage! He’d made sure the ashes of that vampire had been put at the bottom of the minions’ latrine. Even if he managed to revive some way, the trauma should linger. As should the smell.  
  
That was always the thing about vampires, Gnarl considered. Vampires were immortal, so always put things off until another day. Humans, by contrast, were always in such a frantic rush to get things done before their own death. Of course, minions were not afflicted with the lethargy of ever-lasting life, but that _was_ because minions were the ultimate lifeform in his quite considered opinion. It was probably because minions weren’t immortal, but just treated death as a form of sleep; something to be fixed by kicking the individual in question and telling them to stop being lazy.  
  
He entered his overlady’s office. She was behind her desk, sulking.  
  
“Gnarl,” Louise asked him. “You don’t think I sound like my sister, do you?”  
  
Gnarl considered this. “No, your wickedness,” he said.  
  
Louise perked up. “I thought not! After all—”  
  
“For one, you don’t sometimes lisp when your fangs get in the way.”  
  
She slumped back down. “I meant my other sister,” she muttered.  
  
“Ah. Rather vague there, your obfuscated majesty. In that case, I wouldn’t know. I missed the period when she was rampaging around like a pubescent terror killing perfectly innocent practitioners of black magic and slaughtering stupid little naïve goblins.” Gnarl stroked his goatee. “I do wonder what would have happened if she had found this tower twelve or so years ago,” he said thoughtfully. “I believe she could have had a most malign fall into darkness. I would have been positively ecstatic to serve someone like her back then. Oh, imagine the dark reign that someone so infamously mean would have imposed on Tristain!”  
  
That was about when Louise threw a shoe at him. Of course, Gnarl was entirely used to being used as an attempted target for fireballs, lumps of ice and not infrequently their jester, so easily avoided it and made a swift retreat.  
  
Tail twitching, Pallas stalked up the corridor towards him. The cat’s eyes were narrowed and her ears were flat as she glared at Gnarl.  
  
“Ah, young overladies. They’re always so volatile,” Gnarl said happily.  
  
Pallas hissed at him, keeping well away from the foul-smelling minion.  
  
“Come closer, pussy, and you’ll find yourself splattered,” he said happily, ambling off with the aid of his walking cane. He made his way to the place which was, at least on paper, Princess Henrietta’s jail cell. In practice, of course, the lock on the door was only used from the inside. As it was now.  
  
“Princess!” he called out, hammering on the door with his stick. “Princess!”  
  
“Is Louise-Françoise with you?” Henrietta called out.  
  
“No, she’s sulking in her study.”  
  
Henrietta opened the door. Gnarl looked up the alleged-captive alleged-innocent princess, whose chalk-whitened face and charcoal-blackened eyes rather resembled a skull. “Ah, your highness,” Gnarl said. “It is malign to see that you are continuing your private investigations into necromancy.”  
  
“Come in,” Henrietta said quietly, looking up and down the corridor for Louise. Her quarters were comfortably lavish and entirely suitable for a royal captive being held by a wicked overlady. However, a false bookcase – installed while Louise was away – was open, revealing a secret room. That one was done up in a rather more morbid fashion, with extensive use of bone for all manner of furnishings.  
  
Gnarl cheerfully sat down in a gravestone-backed chair, resting his hands on the skull-headed arm rests. “Ah, nothing quite like an orthopaedic chair for my tired old bones,” he said, leaning back against the cold stone. “When you get to my age, the old spine aches now and again. Now, then, princess.”  
  
“What do you want, Gnarl?” Princess Henrietta said, gesturing towards a small altar she’d set up where currently a large rat was tied spread-eagle. The stone was blood-stained and chipped. Next to the rat there was a wax doll, a selection of needles, and a raw sausage. “I am always willing to make time for you, but I am in the middle of something.”  
  
“Oh, how malicious, an exercise in making enervating curses which,” Gnarl squinted, “seem aimed at the male anatomy. Who is the intended victim?”  
  
Henrietta blushed pinkly, although it was hard to tell under the chalk-white make-up. “Ah, that would be… um, Cardinal Richelieu. I am of the opinion that… ah, as a man of the cloth, it’s not like he should be using it _anyway_ , so if it happened to stop working…”  
  
“Quite admirably vicious, your highness,” Gnarl said. “However, such poetic irony is, all things considered, seldom more effective than just blighting their lives in more direct ways. Have you considered gangrene?”  
  
“Yes, but that’s not until later chapters,” Henrietta said with a pout.  
  
“Oh, most malevolent. However,” Gnarl said gravely, folding his hands over the top of his walking stick, “I must request that you put a stop to this pet project. The overlady needs your help, and she won’t receive it if you’re locked up in here.”  
  
Henrietta squared her jaw. “But I need to master life and death and…”  
  
“Later, your highness, later,” Gnarl said, his voice as thick as honey. “The overlady needs you there to help her. She’s already acting erratically. So you need to be there to comfort and encourage her, as she prepares to destroy the Madame de Montespan. You want revenge on her, don’t you?”  
  
“Well… I suppose. Yes.” Henrietta sighed. “Very well. I will go clean off my face.” She paused. “Am I doing it right?” she asked, a trifle nervously. “The books said this is what you should wear for necromancy.”  
  
“Of course, your highness,” Gnarl said wisely. “As a necromancer it is proper to look Evil. Skulls and pale makeup and dark eyeshadow are all part of the look. And if you make sure the overlady succeeds there… well, I do know certain people in Albion.”  
  
Henrietta’s eyes widened. “I’m listening,” she said eagerly.

* * *

The sound of pounding hammers greeted Louise as she made her way down into the depths of Jessica’s workroom. Tragically too did the smell of minions. Emerging down into the red-lit depths, she found rows of minions, hammering away at spear-points and sets of crude armour.  
  
“Oh, heya Lou!” called out Jessica, who was sitting on a balcony overlooking the workshop floor. She had her feet up and was scrying on dark scenes of blood and horror on her crystal ball. “Come on up! I’m just waiting for something to cool.”  
  
“You’ve been busy,” Louise observed after she clanked her way up the stairs and sat down with a sigh of relief.  
  
“Well, yeah, after a year some of the ideas are actually sinking into their thick heads,” Jessica said. “I mean, while you were away I got them to attack some forges and stuff like that and steal the clothes of the smiths, and that really helped matters. I reckon that by early next year, I’ll have your legion of doom in matching uniforms.”  
  
“Until they go and stick a pumpkin on their head,” Louise pointed out.  
  
“Hey, pumpkins are scary,” said the half-demon.  
  
“Really?”  
  
“No, they’re just plants. Or, like, fruit. What is a pumpkin? Is it a fruit or a nut or a berry or… like, whatever, I don’t care. So, what’s down?”  
  
Louise cleared her throat. And then winced. “I believe we should take this to some place where things are a little quieter,” she said.  
  
The meeting was moved to one of Jessica’s side rooms, which did thankfully seem to be both well-insulated and entirely absent of minions. The leather chairs were suitably imposing, and the demon-masked mannequins would have been utterly terrifying were they not being used for work-in-progress dressmaking.  
  
“This is much better,” Louise said thankfully. “Now, to business. I’ve been thinking about the Cabal Awards.”  
  
“You have? Wicked! You’ve got that speech in front of everyone!”  
  
“I know,” Louise said, feeling queasy just thinking about it. “Believe me, I know.”  
  
Leaning forwards, Jessica squeezed her hand. “Trust me, it’s going to go terribly,” she said earnestly, but not entirely usefully. “It’s all part of your giant masterplan, right? There’s nothing to be scared of. And me and Henri are here to help you get through this. We’re going to make you practice your speech so much you could give it in your sleep.”  
  
Louise smiled weakly. “Thank you. But it’s not actually about that. It’s about… it’s about what I’m going to wear.”  
  
Jessica grimaced and then tried to hide it. “Can we have that fight later? I mean, sure, I can polish up your armour, but you’ve been wearing it for ages and—”  
  
“I know! I know!” Louise took a deep breath. “That’s what I… I was going to ask you for. Everyone’s going to be watching me. I need this speech to go perfectly. I need to look my most impressive. Jessica. Um. Can you make me something really, really beautiful?”  
  
Jessica’s dark eyes widened. “Do you mean it?” she said softly.  
  
“Yes. I… I need the best weapon I can get my hands on for this. But my weapon here is my words and my speech. And that means I need to look beautiful and pretty.” Louise paused. “But in a scary and intimidating and majestic way,” she added quickly.  
  
She found herself grabbed and pulled into a warm, faintly sulphurous hug. “Oh, Lou,” Jessica said. “That’s awesome. I won’t let you down, I promise! Every eye in the place will be on you!”  
  
“And you’ll upstage your cousins?” Louise asked with a faint smile, returning the hug.  
  
“Fuck yeah. I’ll up-stage them so hard they’ll find themselves in a theatre in Heaven.”  
  
“Just remember,” Louise warned her, “I still need to cover my identity. And I need the Gauntlet.”  
  
“Oh, no worries there. The steel and scarlet and military aesthetics are part of your image now. People wouldn’t recognise you if you showed up in a little Stygian night dress.” Jessica let go, nudging Louise in the ribs with her elbow. “Plus, you don’t have a build that can pull off the kind of thing Henri or Catt or me might wear. You’ve got your own look. You have to _own_ that look, girl! Constantly getting upset about the fact you’re not very busty is such a little girl thing.” Jessica paused. “Plus, do you know how many people I’d kill for your waistline?” she added. “You could wear a sheer dress and it’d look dark and terrible. If I did, I’d look like a badly wrapped present.”  
  
Louise considered it, and smiled wryly. “I’ll let you live. For now,” she said, suitably flattered.  
  
“Oh, what a joker. Everyone knows Dad’d do horrible things to you if you executed me,” Jessica said, getting up to pick up a tape measure.  
  
“… yes. Yes, he would.”  
  
“Well!” Jessica uncoiled the measure, with the manner of an assassin preparing their garrotte. “Clothes off! I’ll make sure the Dark Emperor of Cathay goes weak at the knees when he sees you!”  
  
“It’s not just about that!” Louise blurted out, blushing. Even though the idea of Emperor Lee admiring her made her feel all warm and tingly.  
  
“Not ‘just’?”  
  
“It’s not about that! I mean, it’s not about that!”  
  
Jessica’s cocked eyebrow was somehow lewd, salacious, and entirely demonic. “Then maybe you’re wearing it for Henrietta?”  
  
Louise froze. “Of c-c-course n-not,” she muttered. Maybe if she just set herself on fire, it would be quick if not painless. She already felt like she was burning up.  
  
She felt a warm one-armed hug wrap itself around her shoulders. “Oh, Lou,” Jessica said sympathetically. “Yeah, I know. Getting crushes on your friends totally sucks. I went all through high school with a massive crush on a boy who was one of my friends. And I never said anything to him, because… well, puberty was pretty fucked up for me.”  
  
“How d-do you know?” she whispered. “Does she know?”  
  
“Nah. Let’s be honest, she isn’t looking for it. As for how I know?” Jessica shrugged. “Half-incubus, remember?” Louise relaxed slightly. “Plus, you do get all stammer and blushy around her just like you do when I rib you about Emperor Lee.”  
  
“I d-don’t want to feel like this,” Louise whispered, wrapping her arms around herself. “She’s my _friend_.”  
  
“She is pretty,” Jessica said, nudging Louise. “Have you ever thought of asking her?”  
  
“It’s just my body getting confused b-because I’m a de la Vallière who kidnapped a princess,” Louise muttered miserably. “And it’d n-never work, even… even if I s-said anything to her. She l-loves her prince. And he’s dead.”  
  
“Oh yeah, yeah. Wow. That sucks,” Jessica said, slumping down. “She loves him so much that she thinks about him when I’m going full-incubus. I… don’t think I can be reassuring there. It’s probably super-unhealthy to love a dead guy that much, too. It might make you go blind.” She straightened her shoulders. “It’s a shame too, ‘cause you’d be super-cute together.”  
  
“It’s a sin,” Louise whispered.  
  
“Nah,” the incubus said, with authority. “It really isn’t.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I did a module on that sort of stuff at college. Trust me, I know what’s a sin and what isn’t. Honestly, we’re a bit confused why you think it’s a big deal on the surface,” Jessica said, stretching out. “Like… there are totally tonnes of ways to sin. Why bother making up more? I mean, I guess it helps luring people into sin because they feel that if they feel that way, they’re already evil, but it’s a bit circuitous, right?” She grinned. “I mean, you’re already an evil overlady who’s conquering the north of Tristain, murdering the ruling body of the nation, kidnapping princesses and courting the Dark Emperor of Cathay! You don’t get to falsely boost your evil ranking just by claiming liking girls is a sin!” She wagged her finger at Louise. “Uh uh!”  
  
“But the Church says—” Louise began.  
  
“Yeah, sorry, they’re wrong. Legit demon here, telling you, FYI, not a sin.”  
  
Louise opened her mouth. Louise closed her mouth. “I think you j-just left me even more confused,” she said weakly. “I don’t need this kind of distraction right now. Not when I have Montespan to get rid of.” She ran her hand through her hair. “Do… do you… do you get feelings that way?”  
  
Jessica sighed. “No. Trust me, things’d probably be easier if I did. I like guys. Most guys get freaked out when they find out I’m an incubus and… and say really cruel things. If I’m lucky. Dating as a… a girl who happens to be an incubus is like walking through a crocodile pen. And I’m lucky that Dad’s influence keeps me mostly safe – well, physically at least. Most other female incubuses don’t have that, and men get violent when they find out, or if they think you’re trying to steal ‘their’ girl. Things’d be a lot easier if I liked women, but I’ve tried and it just doesn’t work for me.” She tried to smile, and failed. “I like a guy with a beard. Girls just aren’t the same.”  
  
“Feelings are a pain,” Louise muttered. “They just get in the way.”  
  
“Yeah, but they’re sort of necessary for making the next generation,” Jessica said, mournfully. She took a deep breath. “And anyway! Stop moping! You’ve got another date with Emperor Lee, remember! You like him and he likes you, right? I wish I had an emperor with the hots for me!”  
  
“Does he like me?” Louise said miserably. “Sometimes he blows hot and sometimes he blows cold and I don’t know how he’s going to act.”  
  
“Not with that attitude! I’m going to make you a kick-ass dress and—”  
  
“It has to protect me if he tries to kill me,” Louise said automatically.  
  
“Aww, that’s no fun.”

* * *

  
“… and then I said, ‘I am altering the terms of this agreement. Pray that I do not alter them any further’!” Emperor Lee said, with a smile. “And then I executed them all.”  
  
Louise laughed. “Well, you can’t trust a traitor.”  
  
“Exactly!” Emperor Lee sat back on the park bench in the Abyss, looking out over the fiery lake down below where sinners writhed in eternal torment, and tossed bread to the hell-ducks. The ducks paused pecking at the damned for a moment to fight over the crusts.  
  
Louise, for her part, was feeling good about herself. Lee seemed much warmer this time. He’d been all cold and brusque at their last meeting, but this time he seemed much more willing to just… just sit and be around her. It was nice, especially since Jessica had managed to improve her translation glasses. There was a little bit of her that wanted to subtly shuffle up to him. Of course, she didn’t; for one, because it was nearly impossible to subtly shuffle anywhere when you were in full plate armour, and for two because that was just asking for a knife in the back, but she still wanted to.  
  
She wondered what a man’s lips tasted like, and hoped it wasn’t poison.  
  
“I have already made my excuses to the Cabal,” Lee said, hunched over. “Very busy with internal affairs of state. Can’t take time out of my schedule. So sorry.”  
  
“Thank you,” Louise said. “Are you liking the situation in that frightfully cold area of Cathay?”  
  
“Well, I can’t move my troops in during the winter,” he said, with a sigh. “Dragons do not like that kind of cold. They usually hibernate.”  
  
“Ah,” Louise said, vaguely interested. She wondered if she could acquire a dragon herself. There had to be part of the underground chambers of her dungeon where she could fit a dragon. No one would dare laugh at her if she had a giant fiery lizard that could fly out and lay waste to people who made fun of her.  
  
“But those three lords are out of my way now,” he said, making a fist, “and for that, I am grateful.”  
  
His dark eyes met hers. She blushed. “Th-that was the terms of the agreement, after all,” she managed to squeak out, thankful that her helmet was covering the pink of her cheeks. Lord and Founder, he really was handsome! Cathayans were rounder-faced and slightly softer looking than Halkeginian men, and he didn’t have any of the disgusting facial hair that seemed to be all the pride of men. “There is no need to thank me, your imperial majesty.”  
  
Not least, she thought privately, because I took one of the lords as my captive.  
  
He smiled back. “Then I shall not,” he said, and she could swear that his tone was teasing. This only managed to intensify her blush. “Would you care to expand on what you are going to do at the Cabal Awards?”  
  
Well, she could get her revenge there. Something deep in Louise’s gut was certain that men should be forced to strive and struggle for your attention, fighting uphill against waves of arrows and burning tar and malicious curses. Hmm. Unless that was ‘taking your castles’. She’d need to check. Well, if he was after her hand, it was basically the same thing.  
  
“I don’t want to ruin the surprise,” she said, trying to sound as imperious as possible. “That would just be cruel. You’ll just have to watch it and find out.”  
  
“But surely cruelty is part of your nature,” he retorted.  
  
Louise leaned in. She could smell his armour. “Perhaps,” she said. “But do you really want to find out? Would you like a demonstration?”  
  
“What kind of demonstration?” he asked, grinning.  
  
“A… it would be a very cruel one!” she blurted out, the wave of imperious majesty entirely breaking in the face of the dark emperor’s grin. The blush was rising and she wasn’t sure her armour wouldn’t glow red-hot if it got any worse. “I shall… I shall leave right now and never talk to you again!”  
  
And to her surprise, he blushed too. Somehow that made her feel much better.


	56. Scientific Revolutions 11-2

_“If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight, even should the ruler forbid it; if fighting will not result in victory, then you must not fight even at the ruler's bidding. Unless, of course, by deliberate defeat you can waste the troops most loyal to the ruler and send them to their pointless deaths. Always remember what ‘victory’ entails, and how your definition may differ to your ruler’s.”_  
  
–  Louis de la Vallière, the Bloody Duke

* * *

‘Twas the night before Silver Pentecost, and all through the university, many a thing stirred, especially a cultist sorority.  
  
“This weighs an awful lot, Mag,” Jacqueline complained, as she and several other cultists tried to manhandle a potted oak tree into the Grand Hall. “Isn’t this something that the help should be doing?”  
  
Magdalene sighed. “Jacqueline, why are you not using magic?” she asked acidly, as with a swish and a flick of her wand several large boxes full of decorations floated by.  
  
“… um.”  
  
“You _forgot_ that you’re a ma… no. Never mind.” Magdalene smiled, an effect rather ruined by her natural tendency to stand in shadow with only her glasses catching the light. “Remember, everyone! Strive to be full of Pentacle joy and happiness! It will certainly annoy the Madame de Montespan, and when it comes down to it, isn’t that plenty of reason to do anything?”  
  
Between the two of them, Louise and Magdalene had calculated that very few break-ins in the past had involved sneaking in to a location to hold socially acceptable religious events. The guards were all taking a nap after festively-dressed cultists had charitably provided them with spiked spiced rum and mince pies full of sedatives, and so they were taking naps next to the nice warm fire in the guardroom. This meant that the cultists had plenty of time to sneak in the decorations, along with the orphans they had bribed a nearby orphanage to lend them.  
  
“Sara!” Magdalene demanded. “How are the choirs coming along?”  
  
“Just wonderful, darling! The orphans came pre-trained! I’ve got them carrying wreaths and garlands at the moment.”  
  
Magdalene sniffed, somewhat irked that the world had denied her a chance to criticise it.  
  
And so with great joy, only some of it pretended, they got on with decorating the inside of the university Great Hall. Most years this would have been done already, and many of the women fondly remembered their student days here and the way that free spiced wine was traditionally provided here to the worthy. But this year everything was cold and dark, and the religious iconography had been stripped from the walls. The Madame de Montespan had claimed that this was because the new theology department she had so graciously funded was a better place for these things, but the cultists were – mostly – not fools and could recognise this for what it was.  
  
A mark of the influence of Athe, enforced on the world.

* * *

Backstage at the Cabal Awards, everything was all aflutter. While the public facing elements of the show may have been suave and stylish, here in the bowels of the building things were filled with screaming, wailing and fear.  
  
More than usual for the Abyss, that was.  
  
“Lightning check! Where is the lightning check team! Someone get an occultist back there pronto!”  
  
“Tser’ah is being a total deva! She’s saying that her dressing room is too small! Do we have somewhere else to put her?”  
  
“Oh shit, shit, shit, the Troll King is stoned! He can’t give a speech like this!”  
  
Compared to the squirming inchoate chaos, things were relatively calm in Louise’s changing room. Jessica was here with her, helping her put the final preparations on her outfit. But this was purely a relative thing. Quite apart from the fact that Louise’s nerves were as taut as a garrotte, Jessica was having to make on-the-fly adaptions to her design and was swearing like a sailor as she did so.  
  
“That utter bitch, Izah’belya!” she grumbled, sewing machine screaming like a dying saint. She was very stressed and so was looking rather fetchingly handsome. “How dare she go and show off someone in cloth of darkness! Did she know I was buying it up? I bet she did! Her and her stupid fucking Dark Elves!”  
  
Louise huddled in an oversized chair in the corner of the room, wearing a dressing gown and with her make-up only partially done. Jessica had made her wear her gauntlets to stop her from biting her nails. She clattered faintly, as she trembled from stress. “It’s all going wrong,” she muttered. “It’s all gone wrong. The dr-dress has gone wrong and I’m s-so nervous that I c-can’t speak without stuttering and… and…”  
  
“Chin up,” Jessica said through clenched teeth. “It’ll be all right on the night.”  
  
“This is the night!”  
  
“Well, it’ll be already in… like, an hour or so. Just think about it. Once this is done, it’s done and you won’t have to do anything like this for a whole – godfucking shitbuggering goat-arse – year! At least!”  
  
“What, are you crazy?” Louise snapped, rather wishing that she wasn’t a well-bred lady and could swear like Jessica could. It sounded relaxing. “I’m n-n-never doing this again!”  
  
“Well, next time I’ll have the dress ready on time and won’t have to re-make it because Izah’belya totally copied me!”  
  
“Next time?” Louise wailed in desperation.  
  
“Look, just… just think about how Henrietta is going to be making her grand entrance and pray to all the forces of the Abyss that she doesn’t fuck everything up!”  
  
This only produced a further noise of distress from the overlady, and she slumped over to hug her legs and press her face into her knees.  
  
Jessica was starting to get the feeling that she perhaps was not the most reassuring person at the moment. It was probably because she could feel her tailbone growing notably, and had a headache from how her horns were starting to force their way through her skin.

* * *

Outside, the forces of Evil were making their appearances on the blood-soaked carpet. Naturally, a looming shirtless red-skinned demon and a succubus were providing commentary to the audience watching from home.  
  
“And there goes Shafela the Marked. She’s been very quiet this past year, but the rumours say that she has a lot of power in the current Albionese government,” the succubus said.  
  
“I have to say, Maelar’gnee, burning purple forehead runes are _so_ last year,” the male demon observed. “And so much black?”  
  
“I know, right? Black is always the new black, but, darling, someone has to tell her that she’s far too plain about it. She never does anything interesting with it. What do you think, I’ohn?”  
  
“She’s barely a five in my books,” he added. “She should consider a mysterious mask, because that scowl is not hot.”  
  
Considering the fact that the voices were being broadcast, the reason for the scowl may have been self-evident. But the attention was already moving to the newest carriage moving along in the row.  
  
“And who’s this?” asked the succubus. “Why, it’s Carmine, Countess of Blood.” Cattleya swept out of the carriage, in a low-cut dress. Jessica had judged that she could get away with a smaller mask if no one was looking at her face, and in fairness, she had probably been right. “And of course, Gnarl the Gnarled.”  
  
Gnarl shot a malicious grin up at the commentators, and tipped his top hat at her. The wizened old minion was wearing a spotless tuxedo, complete with a gold-rimmed monocle. The succubus blushed at that.  
  
“Ah, that malevolent old goblin never fails to disappoint,” the demon said.  
  
“He cuts quite a dashing figure for a minion,” Maelar’gnee added.  
  
Io’hn looked at her strangely. “Do you really mean that?” he asked, pulling a face.  
  
“Hey, don’t judge me!”  
  
“Yes, but he’s an ugly old goblin in a top hat,” he said.  
  
“Knowledge is power, and power is attractive, so someone as wise as him is a total hottie,” she argued. “The maths is inarguable!”  
  
Io’hn opened his mouth. He closed his mouth. “And look who it is getting out now,” he said quickly, to change the topic away from his co-host’s perversions. “Why, it’s the Voice of the Steel Maiden! And wow, has she gone to the deathly side!”  
  
Henrietta stepped out of the coach. ‘Skulls’ were the dominant theme of her attire, blended into the general armoured aesthetic that was characteristic of Louise’s forces. Her helmet was a skull, her hair flowing out of the back. She wore a tight-fitting cuirass that bore two more prominent skulls, or four if you counted the pauldrons. Louise’s protests had been overruled in the name of fashion and/or rebellion against one’s parents, and thus the plate was both midriff bearing and backless in a way that would have had Emperor Lee frowning at the suboptimal protection. Layers upon layers of sheer crimson fabric covered her legs in a way that Jessica hoped would lead the fashion journals to use the phrase ‘waterfall of blood’. A skull-headed staff topped off the ensemble.  
  
“Well, the rumours were that she had embraced the path of the necromancer, and she’s certainly open about it,” Maelar’gne observed.  
  
“Necromancer? ‘Ell, I’d necromance ‘er, if you know what I mean.”  
  
“You mean slowly and painfully kill her over a period of days, preserving her corpse through vile enchantments and trapping her soul in a cold dead corpse where she will be doomed to be a slave to all your whims?”  
  
The man smiled widely. “Exactly.”

* * *

The forces of Evil thronged in a high-ceilinged cavern-anteroom before the awards began. There were canapés, and some of them were even things that a human might want to eat. Red lighting dominated, and erratic illumination cast long shadows over the faces of the participants. Here and there, burning skulls floated through the air, casting light down on particularly famous or important demons. And of course, the journaleers were everywhere. Everyone who was anyone in the legions of wickedness wanted to be seen here.  
  
Cattleya had her orders as she made her way into the reception. They were very specific orders. Her little sister was in a bossy mood, and she hadn’t been tolerating any dissent. Why, Cattleya hadn’t even been able to tell her that she had absolutely no objections to doing what she had been told.  
  
She had her target; Athe.  
  
Of course, first came the mingling while she tried to track him down. It wasn’t like she should look desperate, after all. So like a ship broaching the ocean waves, she bustled forwards drawing no small amount of attention from the serried ranks of wickedness and darkness. They were very much focussed on her bustle.  
  
And much as Cattleya would like to sink her fangs into some of the demonesses who were admiring her, she couldn’t let herself get too distracted. She also couldn’t ruin her dress by getting blood on it, or both her sister and Jessica would be really unconscionably mean about it.  
  
In the end, she located Athe, talking to a bulky demon barely crammed into a sharp grey suit, who wore a bound bundle of wooden rods on his back. An axehead protruded from the peculiar contraption.  
  
Athe favoured Cattleya with a benevolent smile. “Ah, Carmine,” he said happily. “So wicked to be seeing you again. I found your notes on the comparative anatomy of Cathayan snow-tigers to be very good quality indeed.”  
  
Cattleya forced blood into her cheeks, so she could blush. “You’re too kind, your Darkness,” she said.  
  
“Nonsense! Your soul might be worthless, but your mind is keen and your obsession with animals is much akin to my own. Through comparison of men with beasts and pointing out their many similarities, faith in the Good nature of man can easily be dismissed!” he said. “Carmine, this is an old acquaintance of mine, Faskes.”  
  
“Don’t let me get in your way,” the dark deity rumbled. “Later, Athe.”  
  
“Nasty chap,” Athe said. “I think that’s why I like him. He’s all gut feelings and brute force, and that means he’s very skilled with the masses. I think I can use him. So, you were over in Cathay?”  
  
“Oh yes,” Cattleya said. “Thwarting the forces of Good, you know how it is. Well, that was what the Overlady was doing. I was there to keep her safe, and of course go after the local wildlife! I found hundreds of new beetle species I’ve never seen before!”  
  
“Ah, beetles. I am quite inordinately fond of them,” Athe agreed, a red twinkle in his eyes. “Sometimes I have thought that it might be better to wipe out mankind and replace them with cockroaches and other insects who would not believe in gods. That would be a world that would please me. Worship is just _so_ offensive, and not in a bad way. My sister, Antithe, is even more violently opposed to it.”  
  
One of the reason that Cattleya was the one doing this was that most of her bodily reactions were habit, rather than necessary. As a result, she did not gulp when she heard such a diabolical plan. “How fascinating, your Darkness,” she said sunnily. Not literally sunnily, of course, because the sun made her burn up and ignite. She scowled. “Though… may I say something? Something more… important?”  
  
He smiled at her. “Of course, Carmine. I am fond of you.”  
  
“Well… have you noticed anything strange going on in Amstelredamme?” she asked. “It’s just that the overlady is finding that suddenly her dark power is finding that there are holy places within the city – within the university – that repel her. She’s been trying to scry them, but they’re interfering with her efforts.”  
  
Athe frowned. “Holy places?” he asked, lines furrowed in his forehead. He tugged one of the patches sewn onto the elbows of his jacket. “No, that’s not right. There shouldn’t be holy places there.” His frown deepened. “But I can feel it there, yes,” he said, after some thought. “There are holy places scattered through the entire building.”  
  
“Gosh!” Cattleya said, knowing full well that Louise and Magdalene had put quite a lot of effort to ensure that there were secret shrines smuggled into hidden places. “I bow to your dark power. My overlady merely found that she could not scry certain places. But who could be doing that?”  
  
“Well… there might be Eleanore de la Vallière to blame,” Athe said, glowering. “She usually is. She has thwarted my efforts in that city for far too long.”  
  
Cattleya frowned, and that wasn’t faked or hidden. She had more than a little bit of a grudge against her big sister, for the whole ‘it was her fault she’d been murdered and turned into an undead monstrosity’. That was the sort of thing that built up a grudge. Eleanore had kept well away from her since then. As far as she was concerned, Eleanore deserved to have mildly unpleasant things happen to her in jail for a few years – and more cruelly, be denied access to all her books. “No, no,” Cattleya said. “She is imprisoned, isn’t she?”  
  
“That is true,” Athe said, scowling. “And I’ve made sure that she’s watched. But she’s stayed there. So someone else is hiding things from me in the city. And making sure I can go nowhere near them.”  
  
“Surely as a dark god, you can go where you want?” she asked ingenuously, twirling a finger in her dress.  
  
“Ah, I would wish that, but my power – and my nature – imposes certain limits on me,” Athe said absent-mindedly. “One that my enemies might know. Yes, something that might be used against me by enemies – or traitors…”  
  
“Traitors? But surely no one could betray you!” Cattleya said. “I can’t think of anyone who would try to steal your power.” She paused. “They’d have to be in Amstelredamme and I can’t think of any of your servants who might do that!” She might have been layering it on a little thick, but she was very aware that she tended to wear her heart on her sleeve. Though not literally! That would be messy! And as a vampire, removing her heart killed her. Just like a human! Though she could get better from it, unlike most humans!  
  
“Who indeed…” Athe said slowly. He smiled at Cattleya, but he was distracted. “We should talk later. I would like to speak to your overlady after things are over.”  
  
“Well, she’s giving a speech today, so you don’t want to miss it!” Cattleya said happily. “She’s been practicing really hard after the Dragon Emperor couldn’t make it and she got called on to replace him at short notice! Poor her! It’s been really hard getting everything arranged!”

* * *

“Urgh, look at her.”  
  
“So pink! Look at how her skin looks. I’d be ashamed to show my face like that, like, ever. Not that she’s showing her face. I bet she’s, like, so ugly under that helmet.”  
  
“Her nose is probably, like, right in your face. I’m so glad I got rid of mine!”  
  
Henrietta started to hear the whispers as she mingled. It meant that her smile in some of the journaleers’ sketches was more than a little rigid.  
  
“Well, of course I plan to raise the dead. I want revenge,” she said, in response to a question. “The forces of the Council have wronged me terribly.”  
  
“I know, right? What is she thinking, going out like that?” the whispers in the background went. “How much do you think she weighs?”  
  
“And the Steel Maiden killed one of them, so of course I swore allegiance to her,” Henrietta added, trying to drown out the voices.  
  
“I bet her thighs are totally touching and you can’t even count her ribs. Like, ohmydarkgod, she could totally lose a good thirty kilos of meat.”  
  
“There’s no need to shout,” the journaleer said.  
  
“I’m sorry, I get quite passionate about revenge,” Henrietta said brusquely. Who were those whispering voices? She tried to look for them, but when surrounded by so many demons and other monsters it was hard to make out who might be whispering.  
  
“Ah, a bad thing, a bad thing, but there is such thing as manners,” the journaleer said, adjusting his cravat. “Well, if you’ll excuse me…”  
  
She was left alone for a moment. Taking a breath, she slunk off to the side of the reception. She wondered how Louise was doing, and hoped her friend wasn’t panicking too much. She could see Cattleya talking avidly with the dark god Athe, while down the other end of the hall the dragons loomed over everyone else. Henrietta had firmly decided to keep well away from them. They might be able to smell out a princess. Admittedly, apparently all the daughters of the Succubus Queen were also princesses, so they might have a problem picking her out of the general princess-ness, but that wasn’t a risk she was prepared to take.  
  
Two women made their way over to her. Henrietta didn’t think they were demons. They resembled bags of skin like tanned leather, filled with bones. Straw-like bleached blonde hair cascaded down from heads that were in truth really just skulls. One of them was missing her nose entirely. Their milky eyes were judging her, and Henrietta felt a surge of instinctual shame. They were wearing skimpy, skull-festooned dresses that showed off their painfully thin bodies, and their perfume couldn’t drown out the scent of embalming fluid. And Henrietta was sure there was something incredibly wrong with their breasts, because she had two herself and was aware of the shape they should be. She would have thought that they were hiding overstuffed bags of flour under their dresses, were it not for the fact that she could see enough that the strangers were simply deformed.  
  
“May I help you?” she asked.  
  
“So, like, hello,” the first of them said, flicking her unnatural hair. She spoke in a breathy whisper like the noise of an unsealed tomb. Henrietta was almost sure she was one of the two whisperers. “I’m The Winter Rose That Blossoms In The Depths Of Dead Gardens and she’s The Rotting Blackened Flesh Unearthed From Unhallowed Graves.”  
  
“But you can totally call me Flesh and her, like, Winter,” the other said. “We totally didn’t know you were a necromancer!”  
  
“Yes, uh, well, I only started learning in the last year,” Henrietta said politely. The hair on her neck was standing on end.  
  
“A word of advice for you, sweetie,” said Winter. “You really need to think more about your appearance. You’re letting down the necromancers by walking around looking like that.”  
  
Henrietta looked down at herself, confused. She thought the dress was quite… well, not nice, but it made her look attractive. “Excuse me?”  
  
“Look at all that muscle! And, like, there is way too much water in you. You look like a blimp, darling.”  
  
“I’m on a super-great diet where I don’t drink any water or eat any food and feed only off souls and it is doing wonders for my complexion,” Flesh contributed. “You are _so_ going to get old and die like that. You need to look into getting a phylactery. It is, like, the must-have accessory for a necromancer. You’ll never get really powerful if you don’t have one. It’s the done thing. People’ll never respect you if you don’t keep up with the look of the modern tomb.”  
  
Henrietta swallowed, looking between them. “You mean it?” she asked nervously.  
  
“Oh, yah, yah. It’s the done thing. And, darling, it’ll help you shed all those extra kilos of fat,” Winter said. “You won’t have to cover your face, either! I know an excellent surgeon that’ll help you fix it up! But you’re going to have to work at it.”  
  
“That muscle is so barbarian princess,” Flesh agreed. “You’ll never find a consort if you look like that. The journals will really mock you if they see you with a trace of cellulite, so just get rid of those bothersome body processes. Men think it’s ugly and the thanocratic houses won’t hire you. They’ll just pretend otherwise if they think you’re powerful, but honey, they really want to be able to fit their hands around your waist.”  
  
“You’re wrong!” Henrietta snapped, unable to stop herself. How dare they! How dare they! Her prince had loved her and he hadn’t been lying and he hadn’t thought that she was ugly! “Men don’t… they don’t…”  
  
Winter sniggered. “So naïve, darling. But run off crying. You’ll learn. Men’ll leave you, or go die on you. They always do. There’s no life for a woman necromancer if she looks like she’s getting old. All the positions dry up if they think you won’t look good sprawled on the side of their throne.”  
  
“I think I’ve heard enough! Farewell!” Henrietta stormed off, the words nagging at the back of her head. Her life was so hollow and empty without her prince, deprived of that central sunlight. She felt like a moon, a thing that spent half its time in darkness and never truly showed its face. He had died on her. That was true. And… and she was going to succeed! She was going to master life and death and find her prince in the grey realms of the Dead and drag him back to life! He would love her again!  
  
But it had been years since he had seen her. She’d put on muscle when she was a captive at the palace. Would he still find her pretty?  
  
No. Of course he would. Of course he would. But the doubt still nagged at her.  
  
It was only when she nearly walked into someone waist-high that she realised she had stumbled across the junior part of the Cabal Awards. Over there, a collection of teenage succubae gossiped and shot side glances at pimply incubi, who were staring back with vacant eyes. The sheer quantity of pubescent lust there was making Henrietta’s eyes mist over with the thought of Prince Cearl, so she kept well away. A young girl apparently entirely made of blood-soaked ribbons ran past her, giggling.  
  
“Now, come on children!” called out a weary-sounding demon. Her long-fingered hands caressed the air to the sound of music, but her hair moved like limbs, ensnaring a number of younger demons. “And Ec-… oh, Unspeakable Blue, where’s she got to now?”  
  
“Grandmother! Oh, oh! She’s run off again!” a grey-haired little girl with burning green eyes said with glee. “And Cally’s pulling my hair!”  
  
“Am not! That’s Ratty! He’s just making it look like it’s me!” protested a taller girl, dressed all in black save for her red veil that was slowly oozing blood.  
  
“Granny, they’re bullying me!” a handsome little boy said, flashing literally pearly teeth. “They’re just trying to blame me because _they_ were meant to be watching V and Zana, and they got loose!”  
  
“You were meant to be watching them too, idiot!” the grey-haired girl exploded.  
  
“I swear, this is the last time I’ll take you anywhere if you don’t _all_ start behaving!” their grandmother snapped. “Would you be doing this if your mother was here?”  
  
This only produced a chorus of whining as she dragged them off.  
  
“Honestly,” said a purple-skinned bald demoness said to Henrietta, shaking her head sadly. “I don’t even know why they let children come to these things. They have no idea how to behave properly. Their mother must spoil them rotten.”  
  
She agreed. No sooner had Henrietta escaped one horde of demonic brats than she walked into a blond girl who looked to be around the same age as her.  
  
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she apologised to Henrietta with a pronounced Albionese accent. “I’m just trying to find where Magda has gotten to. I should have been looking where I was going!”  
  
“Oh, no, no, it was all my fault,” Henrietta lied. She took in the other woman and her eyes narrowed. Perhaps she was underestimating her age, because while she might have had a youthful face her bust could only have been described as ‘maternal’. And her ears were pointed! An elf! Admittedly, an elf who was much more practically dressed than some of the others she had seen here. In fact, her clothing was nearly as fine as Henrietta’s, and made of woven shadow in a cut from the Mystic East. “Who is this Magda?” she asked.  
  
“Oh, she’s a little girl in my care. I’m so worried about her. To think that she’s wandering alone with no one to watch over her, in this hall full of demons.”  
  
Henrietta paused. “I’ll help you look for her,” she said, grudgingly. She didn’t like elves, but the thought of a little girl alone was just dreadful.  
  
“Thank you so much! I’m so worried about her! The other children sat down nicely, but she slipped away! She’s only six!”  
  
“What does she look like?”  
  
“She’s little, blonde, and she has such an innocent sunny smile,” the elf-girl said earnestly. “I can’t bear to think of what will happen if she’s left alone around all these mean scary-looking demons!”  
  
“I see.”  
  
“We have to find her! And quickly! Before she does anything horrible to any of them!”

* * *

“Hey, Mag,” Jacqueline said, standing on top of a ladder as she arranged ceremonial candles. She had been quite careful to make sure they were in festival reds and greens, and absolutely none of them were made from black candlewax. “I’ve been wondering.”  
  
“Go on.”  
  
“Why do we sometimes call it the Silver Pentecost and sometimes the Silver Pentacle?”  
  
“Well…” Magdalene trailed off. She had wondered that for a while, and wasn’t sure which of the competing theories was correct. However, admitting ignorance in front of Jacqueline van Rien would be utterly unacceptable. “Bad translation,” she decided. “It’s certainly sure that something involving the number five was involved, but the records from the early Church are corrupted.”  
  
“Ah. Ah. So it might be something else that begins with ‘Pent’?” Jacqueline asked innocently.  
  
“Potentially. But why do you ask?”  
  
Jacqueline pulled a large pentagram out of the box she was unpacking. “I do so like this decoration,” she said. “It gives a proper air to a ceremony, you know?”  
  
“Yes, but sadly it’s not acceptable to the Brimiric faith,” Magdalene said wearily.  
  
“But what if it’s really the Silver Pentagram?”  
  
“It’s not.” Magdalene’s natural fear of being proven wrong – which was probably the product of being childhood friends with Eleanore de la Vallière – reasserted itself. “Well, almost certainly not.”  
  
In the end, things were done if not to her satisfaction, at least to her lack-of-willingness-to-criticise.  
  
Magdalene spread her arms wide. “Ladies,” she announced. “Let us prepare the dark rituals to cel—”  
  
“Um, festive,” pointed out Jacqueline. “Not dark!”  
  
“Oh! Yes! Thank you very much! Force of habit, I’m afraid. Let me start again. Ladies! Let us prepare the _festive_ rituals to celebrate the holiday and welcome the spirit of Brimir into our lives!”  
  
She shuddered, but refrained from commenting about how nauseatingly clichéd the statement was. However, it appeared she wasn’t the only one who felt that way. The cultists stood around, feeling vaguely let down.  
  
“It just doesn’t feel the same,” one of them said sadly.  
  
“Oh, I’d say! Normal religion is so boring! I don’t suppose you could try at least laughing maniacally. Magdalene?”  
  
“Yes! Yes! A good maniacal laugh always helps set the mood,” Sara said cheerfully.  
  
“Very well,” Magdalene said, sighing. “But after that, we start with the carols!” She cleared her throat. “Ahem. Ah ha ha ha ha ha _ha ha ha_!”  
  
And there was much festive rejoicing.

* * *

Louise lifted her shaking hand from the crystal ball. “It’s h-happening,” she said weakly. She was sitting around in her undergarments, just waiting for Jessica to finish putting the final touches, and the sense of vulnerability from having fewer than four layers between her and the outside world seemed to be getting to her. “Lady Magdalene has sent word that the rites have begun.” She swallowed. “There’s no turning back n-now.”  
  
“Mmmmph,” Jessica said, pins in her mouth. She spat them out. “There never was. Nearly done! Very nearly!”  
  
“I’d sort of hoped…” Louise trailed off. “Why did I come up with the idea of b-basing everything around a speech? I hate public speaking!”  
  
“Because you needed to embarrass Athe publically so he’d react stupidly?” Jessica reminded her.  
  
“I know, but it’s just—”  
  
A knock came at the door to the changing room. It was Henrietta.  
  
“Um,” she began, closing the door behind her. She was blushing pink, and wringing her hands together.  
  
“You should be in-place!” Jessica said, scandalised. “People need to be looking at you!”  
  
Henrietta squirmed in place. “Jessica! I… I need to talk to you! It’s not working! It’s just… people keep on saying I weigh too much and I’ve got too much meat on my bones and…”  
  
“That’s not true!” Louise exploded.  
  
“Shh!” Jessica commanded. “Don’t smudge your make-up.” She sighed. “Dammit. I should have thought of that, Henri. Were they necromancers?”  
  
“Um… maybe? I mean, they were certainly dressed in skulls and…”  
  
Jessica exhaled in relief. “Oh, ignore them,” she said casually. “They’re just being a bunch of litches.”  
  
“Litches?”  
  
“I meant liches. Or maybe bitches.” Jessica giggled. “Man, I’ve gotta remember that one. A litch is a lich bitch. Heh. But seriously, I should have thought to warn you ‘bout them. A lot of necromancers are totally obsessed with their bodies. It’s probably because a lot of the big thanocratic houses won’t hire a necromancer if she looks too old. Or fat. Or won’t bathe naked in cauldrons of blood and look wicked doing so. I mean, that sucks, but come on! They lose so much weight that they’re basically just skin wrapped around bones – and then they tan their skin!”  
  
“They did look like an old boot,” Henrietta contributed.  
  
“Exactly! They tan themselves so they turn orange and leathery, they’re so thin the ribs poke out, and sister, don’t get me started on how they cut themselves open. Did you notice how fake their tits are?”  
  
“I beg your pardon?” Henrietta asked.  
  
“Wait, you can get… a bosom that way?” Louise asked, suddenly interested.  
  
“Don’t even think of it,” Jessica said firmly. “But yeah, Henri, think about it. Boobs are made of, like, fat and stuff.” She gave a demonstrative jiggle. “That’s why Louise who’s all slender doesn’t have the rack I do, but can fit into much smaller dress sizes.”  
  
“Thank you very much,” Louise said bitterly.  
  
“Lou, you don’t know what you have. But when you’re a stick-thin preserved corpse like them, you don’t _have_ body fat. So they do stuff with like… surgery and stuff. It’s super obvious how fake it is. So, basically, in conclusion, don’t listen to bitchy liches,” Jessica advised. “They’re just going to tell you that you need to lose weight and only eat souls and other stupid stuff like that. If they want to look like a walking skeleton, that’s their business. And you don’t need to care about what they do, ‘cause trust me, I’d hit Lou over the head with a hammer if she started acting like the big thanocratic houses.”  
  
Henrietta breathed out in relief. “Thank you,” she said. “I… I knew Prince Cearl wouldn’t have cared that I’m not as slender as Louise.”  
  
“St-stop going on about that,” Louise commanded, blushing.  
  
“And I met the Dark Queen of the Dark Elves,” Henrietta added, clearly more relaxed now that Jessica had eased her nerves. “We had to chase after her little demon-summoner before she managed to trap every demon in a magic stone she’d smuggled in here inside her teddy bear…”  
  
“Wait, what?” Jessica asked, more than a little concerned at a personal level.  
  
“… and, Louise-Françoise, I believe she may be of use to us as a potential ally.”  
  
Wringing her hands together, Louise chewed on her lip. “Later,” she said. “I don’t have the mind space to think about that now. Not on top of everything else.” She took a deep breath. “‘I’d like to thank the C-C-Ca…’ sugar, sugar, sugar, I keep on stammering when I try to recite my speech. I have it memorised, but it’s all going to go wrong and…”  
  
“Wait a moment,” Jessica said. “Lou, I’ve got something for you.” She fished in a pocket, and revealed a small stoppered vial containing a clear liquid. “This’ll make things go more easily for you.”  
  
Louise took it. “What is it?”  
  
“It’s a confidence potion. Drink it, and it’ll take the edge of your nerves.”  
  
On the second hand, Louise managed to get the top out. She sniffed it. It didn’t smell much of anything. “It’s safe?”  
  
“Oh yes. One hundred percent. It’s made by demonic magic to give strength of will and confidence.”  
  
Louise downed it. It just tasted vaguely sweet. Nevertheless, she could feel a well of confidence within her. She could do this! She felt great! She could go out there and she’d show them all and no one would dare say anything! And she wouldn’t stammer at all and she’d remember her lines perfectly.  
  
“How do you feel?” Jessica checked.  
  
“I am going to get out and _slay_ them,” Louise growled, marching out the door.  
  
“Wait!” Jessica called after her. “You’re not dressed yet!”

* * *

Eventually, Louise was finally prepared, and she stormed out, full of vim and vigour. Behind her in the dressing room, Henrietta stared at Jessica.  
  
“What?”  
  
Henrietta continued to stare.  
  
“What!”  
  
“Let me guess,” Henrietta said, eyes narrowed. “It’s just sugar water, and after this you’re going to tell her that and she’ll realise that the power and the self-confidence was in her all along?”  
  
“Interesting idea,” Jessica said.  
  
“So I’m right?”  
  
“What? Heaven, no,” Jessica said, mightily offended. “I’m not going to risk things like this on her own self-belief. If she falls to pieces out there, everything’ll go to crap. No, of course it’s a real confidence potion. I mean, yeah, I’m going to _tell_ her that the power was in her all along and it was just water, blah blah blah, but that’s later.”  
  
Henrietta considered this. “Is that really moral?” she asked.  
  
“Of course not, I’m a demon,” Jessica said cockily. “Now, shoo. You need to get to your seat! Everyone needs to see you out there! I sweated and slaved over that ossific necromancer get-up. If people don’t want to give you a bone after this, I failed in my work!”

* * *

The awards ceremony was in full flow. The low and wretched of demonic society were seated in the grand chamber of the Cabal. All attention was on the stage, where the host of the parasite-god Kapetaal was introducing the next award-giver.  
  
“… unfortunately, the Dark Dragon Emperor Lee of Cathay could not attend, due to internal problems in his nation,” said the host, demonic worms squirming under her skin. “I’d like to extend the Cabal’s thanks to the Steel Maiden for being so willing and able to take his place at short notice. So here she is, to present this year’s award for ‘Best Newcomer’.  
  
In the audience, Henrietta clasped her hands together, biting her lip. She mouthed a silent prayer of good luck for her friend.  
  
A grand orchestra struck up, the overlady made her grand entrance. In the darkness outside the pool of light on the stage, she had been invisible – and the reason for this became clear. Shunning her usual full armour, she instead wore a long hooded cloak of liquid night that pooled around her and clung to her. Under that, she wore a slightly archaic long dress in deep crimson, cut conservatively – though with a low enough neckline to display flawless pale skin. Skilled tailoring managed to accentuate her narrow waist, while carefully placed armoured elements told white lies about curves. Of course, she wore her characteristic helmet, and her left hand was clenched in the dark power of her cursed gauntlet. Her ears were pierced, and the enchanted earrings allowed Jessica to whisper to her from afar.  
  
Henrietta sighed happily. Louise-Francoise looked wonderful, she really did. Jessica had done her best. The two of them hadn’t been able to get the overlady into something a little more risqué, but that didn’t seem to matter.  
  
“I’d like to thank the Cabal for the honour,” Louise began, clear voice ringing out like a bell. The amplifying magics made her voice audible throughout the whole hall, even to the dragons who had been seated so they weren’t blocking anyone’s view. “Although I didn’t win the Best Newcomer award last year, I’d like to think that this is at least some acknowledgement for my successful kidnapping of Princess Henrietta of Tristain, along with my daring heist from the royal vaults.”  
  
“Such a wonderful friend,” aforementioned princess whispered.  
  
“I look before me and I see the wickedest powers in all the world,” Louise exclaimed, looking over the crowd. “I see cruel, vindictive monsters! I see utterly irredeemable abominations who would rather kick a kitten than pet it. I see the absolute worst that the Abyss has to offer!”  
  
The forces of Evil collectively preened at the compliments. Such descriptions fed the ego most malevolently.  
  
“But of course, one thing we must all be wary of is the benevolent influences of the Forces of Good. They work ceaselessly to thwart us. They plot and plan in light places. They send their agents in to sabotage our plans and conspire to see us killed!” Louise’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Indeed, there could be some in this very room. Who knows how many demons have been redeemed by Heavenly bribes and so spy for the angels? Who knows how many alleged villains in truth are Heroes, right here and now, in disguise?” She paused meaningfully. “Who knows how many dark angels secretly still serve Heaven, reporting back to their masters?  
  
“Take what is currently going on _this moment_ in Amstelredamme,” the overlady stated. Behind her, arcane machinery whirred to life, displaying a live feed from the Great Hall of the university. There were gasps from the audience, and demonic parents tried to cover their children’s eyes to stop them seeing what was being shown.  
  
There were orphans singing cheery winter songs. There were red and green decorations up which were neither putrid nor bloody. There was a roaring hearty fire and there were white-painted wood shavings that resembled snow but which were much less unpleasantly cold.  
  
“A light cult is conducting sacred rituals in the Great Hall of the University, rendering the entire facility a holy place,” Louise continued, raising her voice over the hubbub. “From this, we can only conclude that the dark angel Baelogi has been a servant of Heaven all along! She has wormed her way into our confidence to control Amstelredamme, a place that has always served the ways of Evil! Who can trust a dark angel who permits such righteous deeds to be conducted in a place she controls?”  
  
From the audience, Henrietta watched with glee as Athe transformed into a black cloud and stormed out. “Go on!” she whispered.  
  
“I fear that if one such dark angel has turned out to be serving Heaven all along, there may be others. This is something we must be wary of! Who can we Evil beings trust when a fallen angel may rise? How can we rely on those who have previously been good? It is a time to strengthen the purity of the Abyss, drawing deep upon wickedness and directing it at our greatest foes – those insufficiently dedicated to the cause of Evil! I vow in the next year I will hunt down those who merely pretend to be Evil, and I ask that all of you join me in this!”  
  
Louise paused for breath, folding her hands in front of her. The Cabal were muttering among themselves, but at least they didn’t look angry with her.  
  
“But alas, I must thank the Cabal for their kindness in not cutting me off when I look like I might be going over time,” she said, after prompting from Jessica. “Now, moving on. The nominations for Best Newcomer this year are strong, and it’s going to be a very competitive year, although,” Louise said, to nervous laughter, “I personally don’t think it’s quite as strong as last year. First up is Tiffania, Dark Queen of the Dark Elves…”

* * *

It was done. She had presented the award to the winner – the dark elven girl – and her part in the plan was done. Nerves on fire with elation, Louise managed to make it off stage without collapsing and then slumped against the wall, a mad grin on her face. She’d done it! It was over! Athe had stormed off and now she just had to move to take down the Madame de Montespan – and that was if Athe didn’t destroy her! Which, yes, would mean she didn’t get her revenge personally, but ‘destroyed by a dark god she had been foolish enough to consort with’ was suitably _righteous_ that Louise wasn’t about to complain.  
  
She took the chance to laugh properly.  
  
“Oi! ‘Scuse me, lady, but we’re trying to move stuff ‘bout back here,” a bulky demon pushing a cart full of clay jars said. “Could you go cackle somewhere else, love?”  
  
Louise briefly considered incinerating him, but decided against ruining her good mood. “Impertinent lackey!” she snapped, and waltzed off. It had worked! She felt like dancing, but that would come later. But at least she wouldn’t have to give any speeches!  
  
“Jessica, I did it!” she crowed happily as she burst through the door to her changing room. “I did it! I barely stammered at all! That confidence potion worked and—”  
  
“We have a problem,” Jessica said flatly, from where she’d been watching it on the crystal. She had a goatee, and her dark eyes smouldered in a way that left Louise’s heart fluttering.  
  
The bottom fell out of her stomach. “What do you mean we have a problem? Why do we have a problem? What kind of problem do we have?” Louise blurted out, her voice rising in a crescendo into a shriek.  
  
“So, uh…”  
  
“Why are we having problems? We shouldn’t be having problems!”  
  
Jessica slapped her.  
  
“Ow.”  
  
“Shut up and stop repeating the word ‘problem’, and I’ll tell you,” Jessica said, rubbing her hand. “Dark gods, why did I slap your helmet? Never mind that! Look!” She gestured at a complicated array of small stone statues that looked vaguely like a chessboard.  
  
One of the pieces had fallen over. It looked half-melted, like a boiled sweet someone had sucked on.  
  
“What’s that?” Louise asked, stomach churning.  
  
“Dark god and demon lord tracking shrine,” Jessica explained handsomely. “When a dark god is defeated their icons and temples collapse and stuff, yeah? Well, each of the little statues is a tiny blasphemous icon. And Athe’s one just melted.”  
  
“What… what does that mean?” Louise said, mouth dry.  
  
“It means Athe has been defeated,” Jessica said. “And… and it’s reforming. Into a female shape.”  
  
“But…” Louise blinked. “He’s a dark god.”  
  
“So? Dark gods get killed all the time.”  
  
“By my mother, yes,” Louise said grimly.  
  
“… well, there are some other people who can do it, but yes,” Jessica said. She ran her hands through her hair, rubbing her horns. “They get killed, or get their power usurped. And… a powerful dark angel isn’t much different from a dark god. So. Um. I think she got him.”  
  
“So… Baelogi defeated Athe,” Louise said, pacing up and down. She rubbed her hands together, feeling cold due to more than the frozen hellish weather. “I need to get to Amstelredamme right now,” she said, stomach churning.  
  
“Right now? But if…”  
  
“Look, remember who my mother is! I know about killing dark gods! That was a bedtime story for me when I was little!” Louise snapped. She took a deep breath. “It’s important to murder a new dark god when they’re only just forming! Because they’re still… still digesting the power they’ve taken in! She’ll never be this vulnerable again!”  
  
“Let me just…”  
  
“There isn’t time! This is my fault! I need to make things right!”  
  
“But you’re not even in your armour and…”  
  
“I don’t care!” Louise’s knuckles whitened around the black metal of her staff. “Jessica? Why are you still here?”  
  
“Because…”  
  
“Get me to the surface!”  
  
“But…”  
  
“Now!”  
  
Jessica scurried out. Louise made sure the door was shut, and then collapsed down onto the floor, yanked off her Gauntlet, and screamed into her balled up fist until she felt better. The combination of fear and rage filling her veins was peculiarly exhilarating. And terrifying, of course. She was just about to do something very, very stupid. Generations of de la Vallière blood within her veins rebelled, screaming that she was being idiotically heroic and what she should be doing was tricking some saps into disposing of the newborn dark god for her so she could steal its power for herself. Indeed, the bit of her mind that had devised this plan in the first place was already thinking of ways to steal the power for herself.  
  
Louise shook her head to dispel such thoughts, ignoring the faint worry at how good she was getting at... well, being bad. Her blood could just shut the heck up. She was only _half_ de la Vallière. The other half of her came from her mother. And that left her with no choice about what to do next. She had to stop Baelogi. This was her fault. She had planned to have the dark angel fight Athe. And her plan had succeeded. Beyond her wildest dreams – or nightmares.  
  
“Darn it all,” Louise muttered into her balled up fist. “Stupid plans, succeeding too well.”  



	57. Scientific Revolutions 11-3

_“It is the tragedy of our kind. No matter what we desire, we must leave the world to mortals and only act at a remove. The world is for them, and we must only inspire – never seek to control. Baelogi saw the suffering of life in the world below, sought to improve it, and fell. Soshall wanted equality for all and only realised what he had become when his hands were red with blood. Athe thought to prevent any more of us from being blackened by the lure of worship – and he was corrupted by power in turn.”_  
  
–  Dei

* * *

A fire-rimmed portal opened up, disgorging the overlady along with the few minions who’d been lurking backstage as her dishonourable honour guard. The sky of Amstelredamme was filled with violet flame, forming a great anticyclone. A pillar of black light punched up into the sky, pushing open some kind of rift. Red lightning licked between the clouds. The fierce winds whipped the snow into every nook and cranny, and the mounds had acquired an oily residue.  
  
“Welp,” Maggat said, staring up at the sky. “That are a giant glowing spinny sky thing what are a rift in the world and no mistake.”  
  
“Oh yes,” Maxy agreed. “I is giving it an eight out of ten, that are for sure. It have a proper sinister glow and all that.”  
  
Behind him, Scyl tried to work out how many eight and ten were, and gave up. “It no are the best I has seen before,” he contributed. “Glowy sky things was better in the old days.”  
  
“Yes, this one no are having the spinning rubble or the big evil pokey thing at the bottom,” Maggat agreed.  
  
“Also it should be red,” Char added.  
  
“No, green!” Fettid countered, willing to make the point with her knife.  
  
Louise shuddered. The sky was, indeed, very Evil and she had no time for the criticism of the minions as it was a real and present threat. However, an even realer and far more present problem was the fact that she was dressed completely inappropriately for a blizzard, especially one that could legitimately be called both malevolent and sinister. She tugged her cloak tighter around herself, and silently cursed the bravado that had led her to ask for a lower-than-usual neckline. She was getting snow down her front. And she really, really hoped that whatever hellish fabric Jessica had wrought these clothes from wasn’t water absorbent, because the hem of her dress was trailing in the snow.  
  
From now on, she was going to make sure she had her armour ready no matter where she went. No matter what she was intending to do there!  
  
“Lou! Lou! Can you hear me?” Jessica’s voice crackled in her ears.  
  
“Yes,” she blurted out. The air smelt like hot metal, and the screaming of the wind wasn’t metaphorical. This was a bad place.  
  
“Thank wickedness! I wasn’t sure that I’d get interdimensional coverage! Don’t worry about the roaming charges ‘cause it’s an emergency! What’s happening?”  
  
“There’s a giant pillar of light and I’m pretty sure it’s trying to break into the Abyss or something!” Louise shouted back.  
  
“Oh, the ol’ giant glowing sky rift shindig,” Jessica said. “Sounds to me like Baelogi needs more dark power to complete her transformation! So she’s tearing open a hole to the Abyss to get it! I recommend wrecking her shit!”  
  
“Just generally, or…”  
  
“I mean there’s probably something she’s using to anchor the gate. Go smash them and you’ll probably be able to interrupt her ascension. There’s some wicked news, though – if she can’t become a full Dark Goddess even with having devoured Athe, then either both of them spent most of their power against each other, or Athe talked a big game but wasn’t all that.”  
  
“Thanks,” Louise said, a tiny ember of hope gleaming in her chest. Maybe she could do this. And she did happen to know several locations of importance to the Madame de Montespan – which was to say, places where the demon-possessed woman had been spending a lot of time in. Maybe that was where she had been preparing this.  
  
“No probs! I’ll try to get Catt and Henri and as many minions as I can gated through, but the portals are choked at the moment and we’re way down the priority queue! You gotta do what you can with what you have!”  
  
Louise set off through the snow. “I have an idea,” she says. “Jessica, can you find out where the rift to the Abyss opens?”  
  
“… you’re not seriously considering sending them through that way? It’s certain death!”  
  
“Come now,” Louise said, ice crunching underfoot. “When would mere certain death ever stop minions?”

* * *

Lady Magdalene peeked out through the shutters, up at the cursed sky. One hand rested on her swollen abdomen. This was not a very nurturing experience, she considered darkly. She wasn’t due for a while, but the only… one of the ways that today could get any worse would be if she went into early labour on top of everything else.  
  
“What are we going to do, Mag?” Jacqueline asked. She was hugging her youngest. “We’ve been in some bad places before when things have gone wrong with rituals, but I don’t think anything has been as bad as this.”  
  
Magdalene sighed. “No, I don’t think we have,” she said. The candlelight cast long shadows over her face. “But we have survived some pretty hair-raising experiences.”  
  
“Like when Maria’s scalp was possessed by a demon,” Jacqueline said wisely.  
  
“Among other cases, yes.” Magdalene squared her shoulders. “And things are about to get even more dangerous.”  
  
“Oh my. Is a giant monster covered in scales and with lots of very big teeth coming for us?”  
  
“Worse,” Magdalene said darkly, glaring daggers down at the slight, dark-winged figure approaching. “It’s Marzipan.”  
  
“Oh. Well, I’ll make some tea for us. I think we’re out of little biscuits, but I’ll make do.”  
  
“No, I think we’ll pretend we’re not in.”  
  
Jacqueline sighed, slumping. “I do feel a bit sorry for her, you know. She’s never had any friends since we kicked her out of the cult. It’s not like the fact that she’s a dreadful person would have stopped us from associating with her if we’d kept in touch.” She paused. “After all, I like you and you’re horrible and mean.”  
  
“Jacqueline, was that a catty comment?” Magdalene asked, pleasantly surprised. “Well done!”  
  
A crackling hiss made itself known in her ear. “Hello?” It was the overlady. “Are you all right, Magdalene?”  
  
Mag turned away, one finger going to her earring. “Yes. Where are you? Your voice is indistinct.”  
  
“I’m in Amstelredamme! The Madame de Montespan has—”  
  
“Yes, yes, glowing sky portal, probably consumed a dark god, threat and or menace. I’m safe for the moment – I’m on holy ground. You?”  
  
“I think I know how to stop her and close the sky rift,” Louise huffed, short of breath. “I just need time.”  
  
Magdalene pinched the ridge of her nose. “You think? Or you know?” she asked. She was not overjoyed at the direction this conversation was taking.  
  
“I know how to break into her townhouse and I know there’s a hidden place in there warded from scrying that she’s been spending a lot of time in,” Louise said.  
  
Damn it all. Magdalene could _feel_ the bloodline curse squirming in her. A de la Vallière wanted something of her. She wanted to obey. She really did. The old Duke had been clever, because it didn’t just force her to follow orders. She was compelled to want to make herself useful. And the worst thing was that it seemed like the only lead they had at the moment.  
  
It better not be the curse talking. She’d haunt the heck out of Louise if it was nothing and got her killed.  
  
“I might be able to distract her,” she said reluctantly. “I’ll keep her attention on me for a bit. But you’re going to owe me the biggest favour for this.”  
  
The overlady was silent. “Don’t do anything foolish and don’t risk yourself unnecessarily,” she commanded. “And don’t die.”  
  
Magdalene breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” she said, the direct order taking a weight off her mind. When it came down to it, there were much less considerate people she could have wound up serving. “You too.” She glanced at Jacqueline, who had been waiting and obviously trying to listen in. “The overlady thinks she has something that can stop her. But she needs time.”  
  
Jacqueline hugged her child, bouncing them and down on her hip. “Oh my. I suppose we will all be wanting tea, then. And one for the dark goddess?”  
  
“It can’t hurt, I suppose.”  
  
“Should I poison it?” Jacqueline asked with the air of someone asking how strong the brew should be.  
  
Magdalene stopped, and a smile which could only be described as de la Vallière-esque crept onto her features. “Strictly speaking, no,” she said.

* * *

Louise took perhaps a little too much pleasure in sending the minions to break down the front door of Françoise-Athenais’ townhouse. The ice-encrusted door made a very satisfying crunch as it caved in.  
  
“Pillage, but anyone who burns _anything_ without my express permission is getting killed permanently,” she snapped, to cheers from the minions who were quite satisfied by those orders.  
  
“Viva la revolution! Time to destroy!” Char bellowed, shoving over a grandfather clock.  
  
Louise tuned out the noise of things breaking, and pondered. If she was a megalomaniacal villain conspiring to take over the city through treacherous and vile means, where would she keep her secret plans and magical anchors? Probably in a hidden basement, except… no, the water level in Amstelredamme was too high for that. How ridiculous. She wouldn’t be able to keep anything there! It’d get wet!  
  
Behind a false wall in her bedroom it was, then!  
  
After some suitably cautious use of minions as trap detectors, Louise dramatically burst into the Madame de Montespan’s chambers.  
  
“Lot of frilly things here,” Maxy said, with the expertise of a connoisseur. “Look at all them dresses hangin’ up on women what aren’t real waiting to be put on. They is called Manny Kins, you know. Named after the man who invented them. He was called Monsieur Kins.”  
  
“Ooo lar lar this are a lady’s boo-dwah and there are no mistaking it,” Fettid said, plundering herself an ornamental fan and putting it to immediate use. “Oi, overlady, this is well so-fish-tick-hated. Why don’t you got one like this?”  
  
“Shut up!” Louise reflexively responded, looking around with wide eyes. Oh. Oh. And she even had paintings that Louise liked. This was the sort of room she might have had normally in a year or two, once she’d gone to university. The sort of room that a proper young noblewoman might have had, with plenty of personal pleasures and a bed which – oh, to be so risqué! – was big enough for two. Even with minions present, this radiated taste and good manners. The best Louise’s own bedroom in her fortress managed was the distinct feeling that the architecture had been designed by someone rather taller than the current occupant.  
  
She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. It wasn’t like she was jealous. She just sometimes wanted clothing that didn’t incorporate steel plating into the design. No, wait, she corrected herself. She wanted a life that meant that she didn’t always have to wear clothing with steel plating for her own safety.  
  
Oh well. She’d have time for complaining later, once she’d smashed in Montespan’s teeth with her staff and then burned her stupid face off. Getting down low, she started tapping on the walls, listening for false panelling.  
  
The minion stared at her in bemusement.  
  
“Are she trying music?” Char asked Maxy.  
  
“Nope.”  
  
“Well, that are at least making sense, because that are not how a revolutionary song goes.”  
  
“Maybe she are wanting something to listen to before she pulls the hidden lever in the bookcase what lower the chandelier what are a secret lift,” Scyl pondered.  
  
The overlady rose in a haughty and only slightly embarrassed manner, dusting herself off. “I was nearly right,” she grumbled to herself, as she started yanking out books. She knew she’d found the right one when it dropped the chandelier onto Fettid’s head, crushing her skull, and opened up a trapdoor above it. As Scyl got to work reviving the dead green, Louise examined the solid footplate of the chandelier.  
  
“Find shiny things!” Maggat told her, hope in his voice.  
  
“Let’s see what’s up here,” she muttered, stepping onto it. “Now how do you make this wo-argh!”  
  
“I is thinking it is prob’bly pressure,” Maxy said, as Louise vanished skywards with a startled shriek.

* * *

Thunder rolled overhead. Baelogi’s feet did not touch the ground. Suspended by the midnight-black wings that she had extruded from her host’s body, she drifted towards the university hall. Still, the earth rebelled against her presence and the ground split where she passed. Snow flash-boiled into steam and a heat-haze hung around her.  
  
Before her stood the Great Hall. She could feel the holy presence therein. Someone had sanctified the building, and done it to set Athe against her. It was a sign of her own dark magnificence that she had been ready for him to betray her, and had got her betrayal in first. The Madame de Montespan had been very useful there. One could work wonders with wards when one was waiting and prepared.  
  
So she would find out who was responsible for this, then proceed from thereon.  
  
That question was answered when the door swung open, revealing the pale faces of Magdalene’s cult. Most of them looked nervous, like children caught doing something that they shouldn’t have. “Old friends,” Baelogi said, lips too-wide as she smiled.  
  
The one exception crossed her arms, face impassive. She was heavily pregnant, but this didn’t seem to be stopping her staring down a newly born dark goddess. “Dark greetings to you, Baelogi,” Magdalene said. “And what brings you here this winter’s evening?”  
  
“So you know who I am?” she asked, mildly surprised at the impudence of a mortal in ruining her grand revelation.  
  
“I have studied the lore of the Abyss and the dark pantheon. You know that,” the woman said, squaring her jaw. “Your presence and your possession of Françoise-Athenais left certain subtle marks on the world that I could read. And a few less subtle marks.”  
  
Baelogi pursed her lips. “Well, well. You are an interesting little maggot. And an annoying one. I haven’t forgiven you for cheating me.”  
  
“I didn’t cheat you. I followed the letter of the contract exactly.”  
  
“You violated the spirit.”  
  
Magdalene rolled her eyes. “That only time the forces of the Abyss complain about that is when someone gets one up on them. You’d have done the same and worse to me if you’d been better at writing contracts and hadn’t signed what I presented you with.”  
  
“So?”  
  
“So what do you want, dark one?” Thunder boomed overhead.  
  
“Oh. Well. Straight to the point, I see,” Baelogi said. “Your worship, your souls and your service. I am no mere dark angel anymore. I am truly a dark goddess. I have devoured Athe and taken the full extent of his power for my own. Those who adore me shall receive blessings and shall transcend the feeble limits of their mortal form. Those who reject me shall become fodder for my great work.” She stepped forwards, feeling the burning heat of the holy ground before her. “Love me and follow, or die.”  
  
“Would you care for some tea?”  
  
“… I beg your pardon?” Baelogi blinked. Why had she said that?  
  
“Some tea.” Magdalene smiled. “We’re having a hot drink in here, because it’s cold.” She accepted two cups from Jacqueline, and took a sip from one. “I’ll levitate it out if you want it.”  
  
Baelogi glared at the cup offered, feeling its radiant glow on her arcane senses. “You made that tea with holy water,” she snapped.  
  
“Drat,” Magdalene said with a shrug. “I had hoped that might work. Oh well.” She took a long sip of it. “It actually tastes rather good.”  
  
“Of course it tastes good! It’s made from holy water! How the hell can you handle that?”  
  
“I’m a champion of the light and goodness, standing up to a servant of Evil,” Magdalene said blandly. The strange light that surrounded the dark angel reflected off her glasses, leaving her eyes impossible to see. The rest of her face was wreathed in shadow.  
  
“You literally summon demons and worship dark gods,” Baelogi snapped, face-reddening. “You don’t get to cower on blessed holy ground and claim you’re on the side of Good!”  
  
“Actually, I do,” Magdalene said smugly. “I always make sure to go to repent my sins regularly. And you know very well that I’m very particular with the wording of demonic contracts. You have no claim on my soul, and neither does Athe – nor any other dark god or demon prince.” She took another sip. “I’m the hero here, you know. I’m valiantly defending a holy place from the actions of a dark goddess. A few minor peccadillos in my past mean nothing compared to the righteousness of my current actions.”  
  
Baelogi grated her teeth, memories from Francoise-Athenais filling her head. This mortal maggot always had been Eleanore de la Vallière’s crony, and the student had learned well from the master. “I will destroy you unless you kneel before me,” she said flatly.  
  
“No, you won’t. I’m standing on holy ground. You have no hold on my soul. Your magic can’t touch me. We literally just went over that. And on top of that, I’m drinking holy water,” Magdalene said wearily. “Really, Baelogi, you should let Marzipan do the thinking for you. She’s smarter than you are. She managed to get one over Eleanore, for goodness’ sake. You’re basically running on inertia here.”  
  
“Shut it!”  
  
“No, seriously, how much of the plan was actually hers? Did your plan for your ascension require her aid? You might be a powerful dark angel with mastery over flesh, but I notice that very little of your portfolio requires intellect.”  
  
“Shut up!” Baelogi snapped, reddening. “Are you trying to anger me, mortal?”  
  
“Actually, come to think of it, I believe I’ve seen you referred to as the ‘blind watchmaker’. That’s a bit poor of you. I don’t think that means you’re very good at your job.”  
  
“That’s slander!” Baelogi fumed. “I’m not blind! Do you know how hard it is to assemble an eye correctly? So what if I made the retina the wrong way around in mammals? I fixed that when I made squid!”  
  
Magdalene gestured with her cup. “I’m sorry, weren’t you meant to be trying to get us to follow you? You just confessed to making mistakes. That’s not very impressive, is it, ladies?”  
  
“No, it isn’t,” the cult chorused dutifully.  
  
“Indeed it isn’t. So, dark one, what are you prepared to offer us?”  
  
Baelogi tilted her head, letting strands of green hair fall in front of her face. Her nostrils flared and her lips pursed as she fought to control her irritation. And then a look of serenity crossed her face. “Oh, of course,” she said, with saccharine sweetness. “My offer is simple. Serve me, and I will offer you ascension. Your mortal flesh will become as you wish. Every limit shall be transcended. Your flesh will never die, but shall grow forevermore. And the one who will be my most-favoured high priestess and partake of my mightiest gifts shall be the one who brings me the head of Lady Magdalene van Delft.”  
  
The dark goddess took great pleasure in the little gasp from the annoying mortal. “Somehow I feel disinclined to agree to your offer,” she drawled.  
  
“I’m not making it to you,” Baelogi said, drawing on the memories from the tortured soul of the Madam de Montespan. Oh, why hadn’t she thought to do this before? All petty cruelties and meaness that Magdalene indulged in were things to use against her. “Do you think anyone actually likes you? You’re a petty control freak who’s obsessed with having everything doing what you want. You pride yourself on how clever you are, and so you like making other people feel small.” She leaned forwards. “It’s sad, really. You’re still a wailing little mortal child who trails in Eleanore de la Vallière’s footsteps, trying to be like your childhood friend – but you’ll never be as good as her and you know it. She’s better than you at everything you do. You’re always second-rate. You loved Jean-Jacques but he didn’t pick you. In fact, no one actually _likes_ you. You’re just someone that other people put up with so they don’t have to put up with the hassle of organising things.  
  
“And the funniest thing is,” she continued, leaning forwards, feeling the heat of the holy place on her face, “for all that you try to lead a dark cult, you’re so scared of commitment that you pass up power time and time again – and for what? So you can keep hold of a soul you don’t even use? You could have real magical talent – just like everyone here – but not only do you hold yourself back, but you hold them back too. You’re _weak_. A weak, scared little mortal too afraid to reach out for the power to break the chains on you.” She smiled. “You’re not getting out of this building alive. The only question is whether you’ll drag everyone else down with you.”  
  
“Was that supposed to upset me?” Magdalene said, affecting a yawn. “You still can’t get in here and—” She gasped in sudden pain and shock, face turning even more pale than usual. Staggering, Magdalene sagged and collapsed, a knife protruding from her back.  
  
“And it looks like someone is getting a start on their application for the high priestess position!” Baelogi said wickedly. “Nicely _done_.”

* * *

Louise was quite sure that this wasn’t a safe way to get into a hidden attic. That chandelier-lift was clearly calibrated for someone heavier than she was. That thought cheered her up slightly, as she scrabbled around and found a candle. She lit it with an acrid pink flame.  
  
“I’m fine up here,” she called down to the minions, before they set the building on fire trying to rescue her or something similarly asinine. “Don’t destroy anything down there unless I tell you to!”  
  
“Oi, overlady, can me an’ the girls go loot some pretty girly stuff?” Fettid responded.  
  
“… if you wish,” Louise decided. It would at least keep them out of her hair while she looked for clues. The attic was spacious and the candle didn’t illuminate it all. Pacing down the space, blackboards and working space and alchemy tables came into view. The Madam de Montespan – or possibly Baelogi – was working on something. Something big and fleshy and gross. Down the end of the room was an elaborate Brimiric wedding dress and mantle, the centre of what looked like a shrine to that dog Wardes. However, what caught her attention was the working desk, with the heavily bookmarked notebook that had clearly seen heavy use.  
  
“That seems like as good a place to begin as anywhere,” Louise muttered to herself.  
  
Just from the first few pages, she could tell that this was a tome on warding that was beyond her. She was good at magic, but this was something else.  
  
She glanced down at the gauntlet on her left hand. “I don’t suppose you have any suggestions?” she tried.  
  
The metallic glove remained sinisterly silent.  
  
So instead she did it the harder way. In the piercing cold of the draft attic, Louise methodically worked her way through the notebook until she found mention of Athe’s name. It was made easier by how the handwriting changed midway through. Well, that and how Baelogi started writing in the Dark Tongue. That was a strong hint as to when she had taken control.  
  
“Oh! Is that how she did it?” Louise whispered. It must have been very dangerous. Baelogi wouldn’t have had a hope of success without knowledge she’d taken from Françoise-Athenais, and she likely didn’t fully understand it herself. It was all linked to the biological abomination she was building in the Theology department. All of it. The rift, how she had been able to trap Athe, everything. She was building something, a vessel for the power made from the foetus of an angel.  
  
She swallowed. And it implied that she was the mother and the father was… yuck. Yuck. She wasn’t going to think of that.  
  
But she now had the information she needed. She had Baelogi’s weakness. She had the place she needed to be. She could stop the newborn dark goddess.  
  
And she had something else.  
  
Louise looked at the wedding dress and smiled a deeply, deeply unpleasant smile.  
  
“Oh, Fettid,” she called down to the minions. “Come up here, would you? I have something very, _very_ special for you to wear.”

* * *

Wheezing in pain, Magdalene tried to pull herself out of the slushy snow that surrounded the entry way. Bright red blood pooled around her, staining the white. Twisting, she looked up at the robed figure behind her. “Maria,” she gasped, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. “The fuck?”  
  
“Nothing personal,” said Maria de Anoun, smirking as she stared down. She paused. “Wait, no, it’s very personal. You’ve been a mean vindictive bitch since we were at school. You’ve belittled me, you’ve called me a fool, and you’ve stood in the way of getting real power. When we could have had some proper demonic investment, you’ve kept us taking only scraps.” She pulled down her hood, and began to unfasten her dress. “My goddess! Baelogi! Take my body! Change it as you will! I will be your highest of priestesses, your chosen one!”  
  
“Have you completely lost your mind?”  
  
“I didn’t become a cultist of dark gods to pass over demonic power,” Maria snapped. “You’re so scared of losing anything that we never _gain_ anything worthwhile! Well, no more!”  
  
“She has the right idea,” Baelogi said, lips twisted in smug satisfaction. “Oh, we will get on so well. I do love followers who let me express my creativity truly in their form. How do you feel about poison spurs? Oh, and perhaps a duck-like bill – and laying eggs?”  
  
Maria paused, suddenly looking a lot less eager. “Well, uh…”  
  
“Um. Excuse me, Maria,” said Jacqueline. “I have a suggestion.”  
  
“What is it?” Maria asked, half turning and meeting a silver candlestick coming the other way.  
  
She went down like a poleaxed cow.  
  
“Ooops,” Jacqueline said, not sounding very sorry at all as she lowered her candlestick. “I hope I didn’t hit her too _too_ hard.”  
  
There was nervous laughter from the other cultists. “I’m sure your hand just slipped,” one of them suggested.  
  
“Silly Jacqui, so clumsy.”  
  
“Oh, no, I deliberately clubbed her over the head with a candlestick,” Jacqueline said, sounding mightily offended. “I might be a bit dim sometimes, but I’m not stupid enough to offer myself to Baelogi. You know she has a thing about growing monsters inside people before they burst out? It’s frightfully uncouth.”  
  
“Make one black-carapaced demon-spawn burst out of someone’s chest, and everyone assumes that’s all you do!” the newborn dark goddess protested. “I did that once!”  
  
“Liar,” Magdalene said weakly, from her position down on the ground. “I know about the mutilated corpses showing up around the university.”  
  
“Well, once this week. That’s beside the point. Stop quibbling over petty details!”  
  
“That is _not_ a petty detail.”  
  
“Does anyone else feel like taking the offer?” Jacqueline asked, holding the candlestick menacingly.  
  
“Well,” began one of the women awkwardly.  
  
Jacqueline clubbed her unconscious too. “Right!” she snapped, in full maternal mode. She huffed a stray lock of blonde hair out of the way. “Anyone else? I can do this all night! I’ve got a heavy candlestick and I’m not afraid to use it. And it’s made of silver! I don’t know if that’ll do anything extra, but do you want to find out?”  
  
The other women shook their heads quickly.  
  
“In that case, get Magdalene inside and Annalise, start the healing. And then we are going to sing songs to honour Brimir and the Lord!” Jacqueline van Rien stared down the dark goddess outside with the general attitude of a mongoose confronting a basilisk. That was to say that while she was willing to make a go of it, she would prefer that the giant snake not be a supernatural monster that was rather out of her metaphysical weight category. “Just try to get in! Just try!”  
  
“Oh, I will. And not one of you will be spared. Not a single one!” Baelogi snapped. “Cockroaches and other insects will tell stories of your fate to their offspring to scare them! I’ll make sure of it!”  
  
Jacqueline slammed the door in her face, and then slumped down, shaking.  
  
“What’re we going to do, Jacqui,” Elise asked, hands clasped to her chest. “I don’t know… that’s a dark goddess out there! And she says she’s going to horribly kill all of us!”  
  
Swallowing, Jacqueline straightened up. “This isn’t the first dark deity that’s threatened us,” she said, with more bravery than she felt. “So what we’re going to do is make sure that Mag survives and can talk to us! She’s much better at this kind of thing than me. She might know about some weakness or whether we can sell our souls to the Forces of Light or summon an angel or something.” She nodded. “And pray to Brimir that the overlady comes through.”  
  
“… will Brimir really help an overlady?”  
  
“The Church says that the Lord works in mysterious ways,” Jacqueline said, with a faith born of desperation. “And it can’t hurt.”  
  
“Well, maybe he decides to smite her and us as well—”  
  
“Fine, it might hurt. But I think we’re quite out of options here.” She looked out one of the high windows of the Great Hall, up at the purple-wreathed sky. “Barring a sudden band of heroes showing up, the overlady is the only chance we have.”


	58. Scientific Revolutions 11-4

_“Karina? Damn that woman! She’s the sexiest piece of filly to ever top my kill count of demon lords! And dark gods, to boot! And the way she looks in a man’s clothing; it’s like she’s a woman, but with all the normal flaws stripped away! And I mean stripped! Rrrawrr! If she hadn’t taken up with that de la Vallière nancy boy, I’d’ve have pounded her until one of us had a broken pelvis, and got to making the greatest heroes Halkeginia has ever seen! Why can’t you be more like her, wifey?”_  
  
–  Blitzhart von Zerbst

* * *

The sounds of destruction afflicted the blighted city of Amstelredamme. These particular noises were not the product of the vast evil purple swirly column inflicted by a dark goddess, but were instead the product of the much smaller invasion of Louise de la Vallière. And more pertinently, they were the product of minions moving from one place to another looting everything they could find along the way.  
  
Louise wasn’t paying them much attention. She was instead focussed on keeping her balance in the snow-choked streets. She had plundered a fur coat from Montespan’s wardrobe, which apart from being lovely and warm also fit her perfectly. With the snug garment belted around her, she jogged up to the university gates. And then had to pause to rest.  
  
“At least… at least that’s the advantage of… of not… not wearing my armour,” she wheezed, gasping for breath. “Probably… probably be… be dead from… from… stuff. Running. Stuff.” Sprints through snow-covered streets were not her preferred method of dark conquest. She had minions for that. She was meant to be standing at the back ordering them around and throwing dark magic at her foes, for Brimir’s sake.  
  
The epicentre of the cataclysm was just ahead of her. The pillar of light sprouted from the theology department of the university, breaking through the roof. Scattered tiles and bits of wall littered the snow-covered lawns.  
  
Leaning on her staff, Louise wiped her mouth and then coughed, lungs hurting from the cold air. “Right,” she said, taking several deep breaths. “Minions!”  
  
“Yes, overlady?” Maggat said, hefting his club.  
  
“Knock the dang door down.”  
  
“Yes, overlady!”  
  
The minions hit the door like a wave of foul-smelling goblinoids. It burst open, flying off the hinges and Louise stomped through. She took in the white-robed figures standing around a glowing purple circle. Ember-like sparks fell from the hole in the ceiling, to be absorbed by the dark magic of the ritual. The forms of the cultists were twisted and hunch-backed and barely human. Overhead, something monstrous and fleshy hung from the ceiling, with pale flesh and grey hair and a pair of half-formed black-feathered wings.  
  
“Oi, what are you doing—” began one of the figures. A duck-like bill sprouted from his twisted face, and his left arm was spider-like.  
  
“Are you servants of Baelogji?” Louise demanded.  
  
“Of course! Our dark lady has—”  
  
“And is she trying to make an artificial angel? Is that what that is?”  
  
“It is our great—”  
  
“And are you a vital part of that plan?”  
  
“Can you stop interrupting me?” the cultist demanded.  
  
“Answer the darn question!”  
  
“Well, of course we—”  
  
“Minions! Kill them all!”

* * *

The night-time sky of the Abyss was a sullen grey-orange. The blood-red wolf-moon shone down through the smog onto a battle, baring its teeth.  
  
With a ferocious roar, the one-eyed giant picked up the mound of flesh and tentacles and pounded it into the ground repeatedly. Advancing with their oversized weapons in hand, a mass of purple-helmeted soldiers pushed forwards, thrusting their broad lances into the most vulnerable spots of their foes. The minions were with them, and several had already acquired purple helmets from their nominal allies.  
  
Three ladies looked down upon the bloody battle on the blasted plains of the Abyss, observing as the combined forces of the Overlady and the Viscounty of the Descending Spheres swept against the twisted organic forces of Baelogji. Some might have said it was not a suitable sight for a young woman, but honestly such moral authorities would probably make an exception for a vampire, a necromancer and a demon princess.  
  
“See,” Jessica said, watching the orgy of violence with smug satisfaction, “I told you that borrowing those soldiers from Dad would be more than enough to claim the portal.”  
  
“Does he know?” Henrietta asked nervously.  
  
“I’ll tell him later,” Jessica said with a shrug. “I bet they’re having fun. They get bored just guarding Dad’s clubs. It does them good to have a chance to flex those sexy bods.”  
  
A towering pillar of manliness clattered up. His skin-tight silver armour hugged every contour of his well-sculpted body, while his helm was a glorious imperial purple. “Lady J’eszika!” he snapped, posing to show off his quads and his taut buttocks. Cattleya looked up at him with a faint expression of disgust.  
  
“What is it, Major Rekshun?” Jessica asked.  
  
“We have secured the portal! We took them hard and fast in a full frontal assault, slamming our bodies into their defences again and again until we penetrated their lines! They’re – mmm – totally unable to resist our mighty weapons! They’ve turned their arses and fled! And the minions are… well, I don’t want to say what they’re getting up to with the fallen, but their hands are oh so busy!”  
  
A war-cry of “Loot the shineys!” drifted across the battlefield.  
  
“Very good, major,” Jessica said. “Press home the assault! Leave none of them standing! Strike them down from behind. If they kneel before you… well, you may take them as booty if you wish.”  
  
“Mmm! That’s just the kind of wickedly pleasurable order I like,” the major said with delight, saluting her with a curled fist and a casual groin-thrust. “You’ll be a wonderful prince… um, princess of the incubi once you get out of the fashion business.” Jessica’s face hardened at that slightly, but he missed it. “Come on, men! Forwards! Forwards! Give them everything you’ve got until you’re spent!” he roared.  
  
“Well,” Henrietta said, fanning herself faintly. “They’re… um. Enthusiastic.”  
  
Jessica nodded wryly. “Yeah, that’s one way of putting it. They’re just so into it, and they pester me about taking over Dad’s conquests and overthrowing my aunt and all that kind of stuff. But it’s not going to happen.” She ran her hands through her hair, and then felt her upper lip. “See, not even a hint of moustache. Battles just don’t do it for me. Well, that and the fact that I wouldn’t have a chance against my aunt. Not in a thousand years. You’d have to be some kind of hero to take her. Someone like Blitzhart von Zerbst, for example.”  
  
“Well, I dare say we’ve had more than enough scantily clad men for several years,” Cattleya said, dropping down from the high rock she had been crouching on.  
  
“I haven’t,” Jessica said, as they advanced down the slope. She made her way to the forwards command centre, shouting orders at the minions. “Prepare for portal insertion – but not yet! I need to modify it so it won’t stop minions going through!”  
  
“Whee!”  
  
“Today are a good day to die!”  
  
“Coward! It are bad to die for the overlady! And it are night! Today are a bad night to die!”  
  
“So adorably cheerful!” Cattleya said, dabbing at her dry eyes with a handkerchief. She shifted to face Henrietta. “Well, I’ll be seeing you later. I’m off to join them. I wonder if it’ll hurt, going through the glowy portal.”  
  
“But that’ll kill you!” Henrietta blurted out.  
  
“Oh, undoubtedly,” Cattleya agreed.  
  
There was an awkward silence. “Well, uh, that’s a bad thing,” Henrietta hinted.  
  
“It’ll certainly be uncomfortable, but I dare say I’ll manage,” Cattleya said. “It’s not like I can’t come back from the grave.” She smiled, baring her fangs. “I’m already dead, remember? I’ll just jump through, and then Louise can sacrifice a minion or something to bring me back.”  
  
“Stop! Stop! No, no, that’s a really poorly thought out idea,” Jessica interrupted, dashing back to them. Apparently she hadn’t left hearing range.  
  
“I’ll be fine with some blood,” Cattleya assured her.  
  
“No, you won’t! You’ve been dead for… at least a decade, yeah?” Jessica said, her words falling over themselves as she tried to explain. “Even if your body comes through the portal in one piece, it’ll decay to the state it should be in! And you’ll be scattered all over the city! You’re not a minion!”  
  
Cattleya blanched, what little blood she had draining from her face. “Oh,” she said softly.  
  
“Yes, oh! It’d be pure luck whether we could put you back together again!” Jessica paused for breath. “Really, really don’t jump into the portal, Catt! It might not technically make it impossible to bring you back, but it might be the closest thing the Abyss can manage to permanently killing you for real!”  
  
“Oh,” Cattleya said. She pouted, baring her fangs. “Why don’t people tell me these things?”  
  
“I have a plan,” Henrietta announced. “Let me just get something! I need to borrow something from one of your soldiers!”  
  
“Because most people aren’t stupid enough to jump into a glowing swirly portal like that,” Jessica countered. “Because they’re not minions.”  
  
Cattleya slumped down. “Fine,” she said reluctantly. She forced herself to smile. “I suppose it’s for the best. Who knows what could have happened if—”  
  
“No need to worry! I have a solution!” Henrietta exclaimed as she dashed back, carrying an axe she had borrowed from a demon. She hefted it in a worryingly professional manner.  
  
“Um. What are you doing with that, precisely?” Cattleya asked, eyes wide.  
  
“Isn’t it obvious?” Henrietta asked in mild surprise, a slightly manic gleam in her eyes. “If I kill you _now_ , you’ll be dead rather than undead. And then we can bind it up with cloth so the body parts stay together in transit and I can reanimate your body as a lurching dead walker. Then even if you land some distance from the minions, the animate corpse can feed on life until you’re brought back from death!” She bounced the axe up and down in her hands. “Now bend over and expose your neck! I promise, I should be able to do this in one or two cuts! I’ve only cut up dead animals before, but I’ve got a pretty solid grasp of the theory! And of this axe!”  
  
“This is a bad plan!” Cattleya protested, backing away. She raised her hands to protect her pale neck. “Please!”  
  
“It is pretty bad,” Jessica said, nodding approvingly. “Wicked idea, Henri. Come on, Catt, it’ll probably barely hurt much at all really. I’ll get the minions started while Henri handles the axework. Oh, hey, I think I can see a coffin shop across the street, too!”  
  
“Uh… no, no, I think I’ve changed my mind! There’s really no need to cut me into lots of itty bitty pieces! Really!”

* * *

The white robes of the deceased cultists were stained with multi-coloured blood. Louise looked down at them with contempt. Some of them had been stripped by minions who wanted something new to wear, and the full extent of the monstrous changes that Baelogji had inflicted on her followers was made evident.  
  
She looked up, getting a chance to fully take in the monstrous form that hung overhead silhouetted against the portal. “Pale skin and grey hair,” she said. Butterflies churned in her stomach. “And it looks like a baby. A premature baby the size of a house.” She examined it more closely. “And that looks remarkably like a minion hive that the… um, umbilical cord is linked to. Darn it. People need to stop stealing minion hives! They’re meant to be mine!”  
  
“Yo, Lou!” Jessica’s voice crackled in her ear. “Sending the first minion through… now!”  
  
The minion came out of the portal in a vaguely minion shaped configuration. It then hit the stone floor at high velocity whereupon it switched to a rather more jam-like consistency.  
  
“Yuk,” said Louise, wrinkling her nose. At least she had been well out of splash range. “Jessica, it worked, but the minion splashed.”  
  
“So? That’s what they do.” Jessica’s sheer apathy to minion death dripped out of every syllable.  
  
“Well, it’s sort of messy.” Louise shook her head. “Never mind. Blues, start reviving them.”  
  
“Yep, overlady!” Scyl said cheerfully, skipping over to the smear on the ground and waving his blue-glowing hands over it as it started to reform. “Here we go! How is you feeling? How was the dead place?”  
  
The brown screamed.  
  
“Doesn’t sound fun-fun,” Scyl observed, with the happy demeanour of a minion who hadn’t just been tossed through a hell-portal, died, and then been dragged out of death.  
  
“But is he all right?” Louise asked.  
  
Scyl shrugged, a gesture that managed to be rather more eloquent than the usual minion grasp of the language of Tristain. “He probably are gonna stop screaming when he runs out of breath,” he said. “Oh, wait, no, he got bored with it. Yeah, he are gonna be mostly fine once he loots himself some new stuff.”  
  
Louise took a careful step back. “Okay, Jessica, throw the rest through,” she sent.  
  
“Right on!” Sounds of struggling filtered in from the background. “Everything’s wicked here,” Jessica continued more loudly. “No problems at all.”  
  
“Stop running!” Henrietta’s voice was faint. “Just kneel down and it’ll be easy for everyone!”  
  
“Yeah, we’re just mopping up the last of Baelogi’s flesh creatures.”  
  
Mopping up sounded messy, Louise decided. That probably meant they’d oozed over the floor. “Well, hurry up and send the rest of the minions through. I’m going to break the portal link very soon.”  
  
“Sure thing!” A barrage of minions splatting themselves against the stone tiles began, and was shortly followed by minions screaming as they were brought back.  
  
“Scyl,” Louise asked, momentarily distracted. “What… what is the, uh, dead place? I mean, I thought it was the Abyss, but that would mean that if a minion died in the Abyss, they’d go to the Abyss when they’re already there so…”  
  
Wrapping his tattered cloak around him, Scyl shook his head. “Oh no, overlady,” he said happily. “It no are the Abyss. Gnarl say that the first ever overlord once have minions go to the Abyss, but he sued the hornies for theft of his property ‘cause the overlord are owning us all the time and he no are letting hornies have us.” Scyl knelt over a new splashed mark, the blue glow of his magic causing the red jam to start reforming into a red minion. “The dead place are all misty and foggy and it are very boring. It are a punishment for dying, I is thinking. I has died a few times. It are real dull until someone bring you back.”  
  
“You’re… you’re saying you’re so evil you don’t even go to the Abyss because the overlord who made the minions sued hell? And _won_?”  
  
“Yep!”  
  
“Is there anyone else in… the place you go?”  
  
“Oh yeah, lots and lots of stuff! Spooky humies and spooky orcs and spooky elfies and there are skeletons and stuff what are having black robes and having choppy things like farmers and elfies what suck and stuff like that. They is all running away from us and leaving us all bored.”  
  
She pinched the bridge of her nose. Urgh, she didn’t care about this. This was Scyl, who could have an extended conversation with a wall. Louise stuck her fingers in her ears, and sat down to meditate. Not to clear her mind, but instead to think about all the reasons she hated Baelogji and the Madame de Montespan and the Council and Wardes and the idea of Montespan doing l-l-lewd things with Wardes and… and… and the way the minions kept on screaming and everything else that annoyed her.  
  
Jessica _had_ told her to break her sugar. Well, she hadn’t used that word, but Jessica was frightfully coarse sometimes. Most of the time, really. That was another thing that annoyed her, yes!  
  
She was going to need a _lot_ of spite and other useful negative emotions to channel the evil magic to break this portal. It was a good thing that there were so many things that got on her nerves. Really, if the world wasn’t such a stupid place, she’d find it a lot harder to use her spells.  
  
Exhaling, Louise listened to the whispering of her left glove, and started to chant. Black magic began to gather in her hand and at the top of her staff, dark lightning arcing itself around her. The light in her eyes shone out through her closed eyelids, painting them a bloody red. Wicked power draped her like a mantle.  
  
This was going to be a big one.

* * *

Nervously, Jacqueline van Rien poked her head out of the window. “She’s definitely still out there,” she reported back, scurrying away from the sight of the dark goddess who stalked around the perimeter like a wolf around a house of little piggies. “And I just saw something that looked sort of like a bear, only it was all black and white. I think… um, she’s turning people into monsters.”  
  
“That would fit with the way she does things,” Magdalene said weakly, lying on blankets in a circle of candles. The children the cultists had brought here had decided that she was much less scary now that she was unable to raise her voice, and so had decorated her with tinsel. They had also decorated the treacherous tied up Maria, although they’d been using a lot more holly for that. “She wanted to do that to us, before I bargained her down.” Magdalene’s expression was pained, and one hand cradled her abdomen.  
  
“Well, I think that’s a jolly good thing. I don’t want tentacles. They’re frightfully low-class,” said Jacqueline firmly. “We are a respectable cult who gather to summon demons and worship the better class of dark god – not some ill-bred peasants who worship fish and octopuses or whatever the cults of that ilk do. I do say that Baelogji was in retrospect a little low-class for us, because she’s just being frightfully nouveau ri—”  
  
But whatever she had been saying was interrupted by a sudden thunderclap which shattered every glass window in the building and blew out all the candles.  
  
“What was that?” Magdalene croaked, gasping in pain as she convulsively curled up into a ball.  
  
“Is it her?” one of the women asked, visible shaking.  
  
Jacqueline dashed back to the window. “No!” she said, eyes wide. “The pillar of light – it’s gone!”  
  
“Do… do you have my glasses?” Mag asked. “I need them to see what’s going on with the portal! Darn this injury!”  
  
Jacqueline leaned down, offering them. “They’re a bit cracked,” she said nervously, “but I found them.”  
  
Magdalene winced. “Bother,” she muttered, lifting her head slightly and accepting them. She moaned, curling up again.  
  
“Wait, pardon me?” said one of her cultists. “I always assumed you wore those glasses so the light would catch them in that really dramatic way you always manage. I wish I could do it.”  
  
Magdalene managed a narrow-eyed glare, largely because her eyes were half-closed anyway. “No, you idiot. I need them to see. It’s a hereditary thing.”  
  
“Mag’s as blind as a mole without them,” Jacqueline said brightly.  
  
“Be quiet, Jacqui,” Magdalene tried to command in a tone that failed at being commanding due to bloodloss and pain. She swallowed. “Now, pick me up. I need to get—”  
  
“Uh no. Oh no.” Jacqueline crossed her arms, and gave her the determined glare of a sparrow staring down a large and angry hawk. “You are going nowhere. You were stabbed, have lost a lot of blood and you are _also_ heavily pregnant. And… uh oh.”  
  
“Uh oh? I don’t like the sound of ‘uh oh’.”  
  
“Mag, you’re moaning and curling up like you have abdominal pains,” she said in a tone of dawning horror.  
  
“Of course I do. I was just stabbed. By Maria who I am _very_ unhappy with,” Magdalene said tartly.  
  
“Um. No,” Jacqueline said. “You were stabbed in your upper back. And, uh. Well, do you have a cramping, burning feeling in your abdomen?”  
  
“Yes, but…” Magdalene paused. “I’m going into labour as _well_?”  
  
Jacqueline twisted her index fingers together. “Uh… maybe? It might be just false labour, but, uh, maybe your body is thinking it might die so it’s trying to get the baby out. So they have a chance of surviving.”  
  
“Oh.” Magdalene considered this. “Bugger.”

* * *

Louise lowered her hands, breathing deeply. She felt far less tired than usual. It was like something had been helping her. Something that had just the right kind of energy for her.  
  
But then again, Baelogji had been drawing a lot of abyssal power through the portal. So – Louise smiled maliciously – she had probably stolen her enemy’s power and used it to thwart her. That felt good. It was a warm tingly feeling, unless that was the stolen evil magic.  
  
“How do you think Baelogji got her hands on a minion hive?” she wondered out loud.  
  
“Oh, they is mega useful,” Maxy said, adjusting a monocle he retrieved from a pocket. “It are made to make minions. So it are made with the secrets of life and death. She are prob’bly working hard to find one if she are tryin’ to make a fake angel.”  
  
“But why can’t I find one that works properly? It’s so unfair,” she complained, and then waved a hand. “No. Forget about it. I’ll just take hers. Maggat! Make sure the minions are up in the rafters, and ready to cut the chains!”  
  
“Yep, they is done! I has also put the new greens what came from the portal up there so they is able to jump down if needed! They are really liking the jumping.”  
  
“Good, good,” Louise said. “The plan is nearly ready. Nearly all the chess pieces are on the board.” She laughed out of sheer glee that things were working for once.  
  
“Ah, that are proper overlady talk and a super wicked cackle,” Maxy said cheerfully. “But what are the plan?”  
  
“Oh, it’s very simple,” Louise said in a tone of de la Vallière-ish self-satisfaction. “Do you remember how I talked to Magdalene about how she fell out with the Madame de Montespan? That Affair of the Poisons that they keep on eluding to?”  
  
“No,” said Maggat.  
  
“Yeah, I don’t remember that,” Maxy confirmed.  
  
“Why don’t you tell us stuff, Overlady?” Char whined. “The only fence against the abuse of power are a well-smarty pop-you-lay-shun.”  
  
“… well, I did talk to her. And I don’t tell you things because you’re mere minions who don’t know their proper place!” She blinked, trying to get her train of thought back on course. “Well… yes, uh. Ah! Yes, well, that was one of Magdalene’s first cults that she organised along with Montespan. She said they were a lot more naïve back then. It was all about husbands. After all, you saw who makes up that cult.”  
  
“No,” said Maggat.  
  
“You never introduce us to all those pretty ladies, what with me bein’ a famed para-moor and all that,” Maxy agreed, adjusting the sit of his hat.  
  
“Shut up. Well, they’re all upper class women with arranged marriages. So they were looking for demonic aid in brewing potions that would help them control people. They carried out dark rituals, sacrificed animals to the Abyss, and so on. They managed to contact a dark spirit, but he apparently had other intentions and was planning to entrap all of them as a harem. It was all secretly a love potion.” Louise shuddered. “Disgusting.”  
  
“So what are this having to do with Marzipan?” Scyl asked.  
  
“I’m getting to that. Magdalene and Francoise-Athenais had been heroes, after all, even if they were now summoning demons, so when the recipe asked them to include some of the demon’s hair, they… uh, cut off his head to make sure they had enough. Which meant that when Francoise-Athenais started distilling the final brew… well, they’d cut the demon’s head off and things exploded. Montespan just wound up poisoning herself. Some messy things happened.  
  
Louise shook her head. “Magdalene said she was never quite right in the head after that. She’d wanted to make Wardes love her like she loved him so he’d break off his planned engagement to me. Instead, she went mad. In a quiet, understated way that she could cover up; but still, mad. Magdalene used to have feelings for Wardes, but she got over them. Francoise-Athenais _couldn’t._ It was like something was sick in her. She’d probably have tried to kill me once my parents organised the wedding with Jean-Jacques.”  
  
“Still not seeing what the linkie are,” Scyl said. “This are Baloney, not Marizpan.”  
  
“Baelogji. And no.” Louise cracked her knuckles. “It’s Baelogji in the body of Francoise-Athenais. She’s using her mind to think – and Magdalene says she’s clearly drawing on her soul for knowledge, too. Which means the poison is leaking into her. I might be only human, but the dark goddess is being driven mad. That gives me a chance.”  
  
“But how is you sure?” Maggat asked reasonably.  
  
“Look up at the giant demonic monster-baby,” Louise said. “It has grey hair and pale skin. I wonder if she even _realises_ that she’s been compelled to make a child with Jean-Jacques de Wardes. She’s a dark angel-goddess thing so she did it with evil magic to further her plans, but she couldn’t resist the compulsion.” She crackled her knuckles. “She loves him. She even kept the wedding dress when she’d replaced nearly everything else in her private hidden study. It’s something she values tremendously.  
  
Louise smirked, looking over at Fettid in her wedding dress. “And here comes the bride. Stand over there, Fettid. Right under the thing hanging from the ceiling.”

* * *

Black wings fluttered in the night as the newly ascended dark goddess Baelogji circled Amstelredamme, trying to work out what the bloody hell was going on. Why had the portal shut off? She needed it! She needed to draw on the power of the Abyss to fuel her own digestion of Athe, and her perfect construct required it. She was using her ba… her beautiful creature to stabilise the portal, yes, but it was also feeding off the forces of evil.  
  
Drawing on dark magics, she invoked the servant who had been in charge of the Abyss-side of the portal. “Bile Khem!” she demanded. “What is going on?” There was no response. She searched the aetherial plane for his presence, and found nothing.  
  
“Oh,” she realised, “he’s dead.” A heartbeat. “Oh. He’s dead. Why is he dead?!”  
  
Someone was plotting against her. Someone had to be! She pulled out her necklace from under her dress, glaring at the crystal which glowed a sickly green-grey. “Was this you?” she demanded of Athe’s trapped soul. “What plan is this?”  
  
She blasted the crystal with agony, but the trapped presence of her former lord seemed to genuinely know nothing. Unless he had hidden the knowledge even from himself, of course. Maybe he had! Maybe he was the sort! Or maybe the way she was doubting herself was some trick he was playing on her, because he was the Doubter after all!  
  
Baelogji took a deep breath, and dove into the mind of Françoise-Athenais. She could help! She had to! Because Baelogji was a brand new dark goddess, bless it all, and that meant that things like this shouldn’t be happening to her.  
  
The soul of the Madam de Montespan pulsed hate into her mind, as it always did. Baelogji burned through that. The human soul might have been strangely resilient for being trapped in the back of her own body for two seasons, but she could just force her way through. And what she found within was certainty that this was a plan by that wretched little overlady. The one with the potent magic which had been able to break Montespan’s strongest wards.  
  
“Yes,” hissed Baelogji. “Her.” It all made sense. Who else could break a connection between the Abyss and the land of mortals with such force? And she chose to attack when the forces of Evil were busy with the Cabal Awards! Such… such duplicitousness! She was a little bit jealous.  
  
She would have been more jealous if she had been less _absolutely livid_.  
  
Tucking her wings in, she fell from the heavens to smash into the ground in front of the theology building. The earth itself rejected her tainted presence, cracking and splintering. All the snow around her flash-boiled. Rather than use the door, she blew apart the wall with a casual wave of her hand.  
  
Within the room, she could see the shattered remains of her ritual circle. Her foolish cultists were all dead, and some of them were naked as well. There was a great deal of blood around the place. Her perfect darling creation was still and not moving. She could feel only a barest trace of life from it.  
  
And then she saw the… the goblin in the centre of the room. The goblin wearing _her dress_. Her dress! Her dress! Baelogji screamed at the top of her voice, the keen of a fallen angel. The windows in this place were already broken, but her voice ground the shattered glass into dust. “Mine!” she shrieked.  
  
“Nuh uh,” the green-skinned thing insisted. “I looted it! I are a pretty lady, you know!” It twirled, the once-white dress already turning a foetid green-grey just from being worn. There was mould growing on the bridal veil. “Perhaps I are gonna marry Maxy. He are a famed para-moor. That are worth all the poetry!”  
  
Baelogji did not appreciate this statement, to put it mildly. Rather than engage in witty banter, she screamed again, advancing slowly on the thief with murder in her eyes. Darkness dripped from her wings, and a burning spiky purple halo floated above her head. “You will suffer,” she grated, twitching. Her eyes were utterly insane. In one hand, a butcher’s knife made of raw magic appeared. “For this. Affront. Like no being. Has ever. Suffered. Be—”  
  
“Now!” Louise shouted, from her hiding place behind a pillar.  
  
Up high in the rafters of the profaned Theology department, gibbering minions hacked at the chains. One snapped, with the sound of tearing metal that cracked like a whip. Then another gave way. The vast weight of the suspended monstrosity tore itself out of the walls, collapsing in a deceptively fast-moving parabolic arc. The petite figure of the possessed Madame de Montespan was directly in its path.  
  
The giant angelic foetus crushed Baelogji with a wet and rather final splat.

* * *

Shuddering, Louise sank down to her knees. The ground was freezing cold, but it somehow didn’t matter. All the excitement of the day was asking for its fee, and she couldn’t quite find the strength to stand. It felt like all the exhaustion of her previous spell was hitting her all at once. Snow drifted in through the broken roof to settle on her head and shoulders.  
  
“Th-that…” Louise croaked. She swallowed, wet her lips, and tried again. “That is not something you see every day. A giant angel-baby crushing someone. That has to count as a holy weapon. Or, um, an unholy weapon. I think I could go quite a long time without ever seeing it again.”  
  
“Yeah, we only seen that… like, two times before,” Maggat said, shaking his head.  
  
“Maybe three times,” Maxy corrected. “I dunno. Does it count if part of the big thing is a giant angel-y baby, but it’s also stitched to other thingies?”  
  
“Oh yeah, I is remembering that!” Maggat said brightly as other minions started pulling on the rope they’d tied to Fettid, trying to pull her corpse out from the pile of meat. “We had meat for weeks afterwards!” He licked his lips. “And I is thinking that this are going to be the same!”  
  
“Anyone got any apple sauce?” Maxy asked, retrieving a fine set of silver cutlery and a filthy napkin from a pocket.  
  
“That are a decadent boor-shwah-zee dish.”  
  
“Shut it, Char,” Maggat said, squaring his skull-festooned shoulders as he added his strength to the Fettid-retrieving rope pull. “I is not hearing a word against apple sauce. It are like a Silver Pentagram dinner for us. It are gonna go so bad with this giant angelic baby when we is eating—”  
  
“… Maggat,” said Louise, trying not to gag. “Stop talking this instant. And it’s called the Silver Pentacle.”  
  
The mound of fallen flesh twisted. With a wet sound it started shifting and twitching.  
  
“Oh hey,” Scyl said cheerfully. “The giant angel baby are moving.”  
  
“Yeah, it are gonna be much easier to get Fettid out,” Maggat agreed.  
  
“Wait, what?” asked Louise, blinking as the minion babble sunk into her head. “That’s not supposed to happen! Kill it! Kill it dead!”  
  
This order was greeted with its typical glee by the minions, who really appreciated the management techniques of their lady when she was in a bad mood. A living wave of weapons, stolen clothing and ill-tempered goblins swarmed the body, beating on it with whatever came to hand. Of course, naturally this meant that they were standing in the way when the reds behind them opened up with a barrage of fireballs, which led to the inevitable friendly fire.  
  
“Char, you idiot!” Maggat shouted back. “Get your stupid gobbos under control! We is trying to cut its head off.”  
  
“You get out the way!” Char shouted back. “It are an enemy of the Redvolution!” He adjusted his filthy red beret, and gestured the reds forwards, hefting his musket. “Come on, cominions!”  
  
In a burst of gore, something tore out from underneath the corpse.  
  
“Fettid, are that you?” Scyl asked.  
  
It was not Fettid.  
  
With a sickening snap of bones the head of the Madame de Montespan twisted back into place. Mewling with pain, she held out one shattered hand, bones poking out through the skin. Louise could see the fingerbones slithering back into the skin, before the skin knotted itself back together. She tried to speak, but her shattered jaw hung uselessly. Dark light boiled below the skin, and her teeth realigned themselves with a series of grotesque, fleshy pops.  
  
Char levelled his musket, runes on his hand glowing bright green. The weapon roared. The Madame de Montespan dropped to one knee, a big red wet patch in the right side of her chest showing where the ball had hit home.  
  
“See,” Char said confidently, summoning up a fireball in his hand as he advanced on the gasping woman. “Minons united can never be def—”  
  
A backhand sent him flying back into a nearby wall, where he went splat.  
  
Baelogji rose, and took a deep, shuddery breath. She coughed violently, hacking something up, and spat out a flattened lead shot. “That really, really, really hurt,” she said quietly. “More than anything.” Her voice wasn’t angry. It was so far beyond anger that it had found cool tranquil waters beyond anger – and these waters were the only thing that stopped her from screaming from the pain.  
  
Louise lurched, and just about managed to stagger upright. “Why won’t you die?” she shrieked. Her arms protested at her attempts to level her staff at the blood-covered woman.  
  
“I am a dark goddess possessing this shell of meat and filth,” Baelogji said in the same soft tone. “I will not die. I cannot die.” She tilted her head, smiling too widely from a mouth that hadn’t healed quite right. “Which is something we will shortly have in common. I will give you everlasting life. Every least part of your body shall grow and divide forever; immortal and undying.”  
  
“You’re not the first demon lord to threaten me with eternal torture,” Louise said, stomach filled with butterflies. Oh God, she realised, what if it wasn’t a metaphor and Baelogji had actually done that? She seemed like the sort. Being torn apart by butterflies would be such an embarrassing death. She’d never be able to look anyone in the eye again.  
  
“They might have threatened it. I am going to do it. You bitch,” Baelogji said, the calm cracking for just a moment. “Human bodies are pathetic bags of meat full of pain receptors. Do you know what that means?” A blink of an eye and she was in Louise’s face, her still-broken hand wrapped around her throat. “Do you know what that _means_?”  
  
Louise kicked her in the shin with her metal boot, and Baelogji collapsed with a faint scream.  
  
“Yes, and you know what?” Louise snapped. “Pain hurts! Get used to it!” She ground her boot in, taking a surprising amount of relish in the pained cries of the dark goddess. She could get used to this.  
  
Unfortunately no such chance was provided. A blast of dark energy sent her flying backwards across the room, through a broken window and into a snow drift.

* * *

Louise opened her eyes, staring up at the black sky. Her ears were ringing. Her back felt like one giant bruise. And there was a minion about to give her the kiss of life.  
  
The latter sight did what traditionally needed bed rest and medical attention, sending Louise scrambling to her feet in a sudden jolt of energy. She rose so quickly she shed the torn remnants of her stolen fur coat. “I’mallrighti’mallrighti’mallright,” she blurted out. “Ow.”  
  
“Wow, I are so good at the kiss o’life that I no even need to kiss,” Scyl said, wrapping his cloak around him dramatically. “Overlady! We is fighting the Baloney, but—”  
  
Purple lightning crackled out and blew Scyl apart, splattering Louise in minion blood.  
  
“You don’t get to escape me,” Baelogji said, floating through a sizable hole in the wall of the theology department. “But you can try. Run. Run. Run as fast as you can. And I’ll still catch you.”  
  
“Ignition!”  
  
Her wings went up like a torch, wreathed in pink flames, and she dropped to the ground. Louise kept her left hand levelled, even as she backed away through the knee-high snow drifts.  
  
“Greens, flank her!” Louise shouted. “Reds, just keep on throwing fire at her! And browns, on me! And someone bring Scyl back!”  
  
A rather depleted minion horde surged into motion, wading through the deep snow. From on high, salvos of flame popped and crackled as they splashed against the dark goddess’ wards. Louise couldn’t see her green minions, but she could smell them. More importantly, she now had plenty of brown meat shields between her and Baelogji just in case she started throwing any more lightning around.  
  
Shuddering, shaking, the possessed woman pulled herself to her feet. Her wings were charred stumps. “That’s it,” she hissed. “I have had enough. You. Your repulsive minions. This city. I am going to destroy everything.” She drew out a crystal around her neck. “I have so much more power that I can use! Oh yes! Yes! You’re going to all die! And I’ll laugh! Laugh!”  
  
“But then Jean-Jacques will never love you,” Louise retorted. Her words sunk home like a knife.  
  
Baelogji froze up, eyes wild. “That’s it. Everything dies,” she breathed. “I don’t love a mortal! I don’t. I don’t! No, you shut up! It’s my body now! Not yours! Not yours!”  
  
“If you’re in there, Francoise-Athenais,” Louise said, gritting her teeth through the pain of her back, “you have to fight back! It’s your body! The only way you’ll ever get it back is if you take it back! You used to be a hero! Did you ever wonder when you became the villain?”  
  
The dark goddess howled, her left arm twitching. It seemed to be fighting her control.  
  
It was working! For a plan she hadn’t actually planned out, things were going well. She just had to cause enough pain and trauma to Baelogji that the Madame de Montespan could take over! Then she’d only be up against… the Madame de Montespan who was also a dark goddess and already hated her.  
  
… wait. Maybe this plan wasn’t so good.  
  
Darn it all! She was in this whole mess because her plan to put Athe against Baelogji had succeeded to well. It better not be happening again.  
  
But her path was set. She had no other choice.  
  
And then she heard the applause. Someone was clapping in a very, very sarcastic manner.  
  
“Oh my,” said an all-too familiar voice. “Look at that. An overlady telling a cultist that she knows there’s still good in her.”  
  
“You!” Baelogji – or maybe Montespan – hissed. Her voice was choral now, as if two people were speaking at once.  
  
“Me,” Eleanore de la Vallière said smugly from the shadows of the ruins of the theology department. Her glasses caught the light, when the rest of her face was in shadow. “You wouldn’t believe what I found, Baelogji. Can you believe it? There I was, having broken out of jail, and then I stumbled on a binding circle in the theology department.  
  
Louise’s stomach sank. Oh. Oh _sugar_. With all her strength, she threw herself backwards – rather further backwards than she meant, in fact, because she had forgotten the canal behind her. Arms flailing, she slipped and landed heavily on the ice.  
  
“It doesn’t matter! I’ll eat your soul and—” began Baelogji. “No. Oh no. What did you _do_?”  
  
Gasping, Louise silently thanked that she wasn’t in her armour. If she was, she’d have gone straight through into the midwinter water. Mark one advantage for being petite and slight of build! As it was, the ice was creaking alarmingly and her back was contriving to hurt even more. Her bruises now apparently had bruises.  
  
But better that than what she just _knew_ was about to happen. Louise was very familiar with her eldest sister, and she knew that tone of voice.  
  
“What did I do?” Eleanore repeated, stepping out from the shadows. She was dressed in the uniform of a prison guard, which strongly implied that somewhere there was an unconscious man tucked into a closest somewhere. She twirled a piece of white chalk around her fingers, even as the interior of the building started to glow a bright blue-white. “I corrected your binding circle. You’d made it too specific. It was only drawing power from Athe.” Next to her, her little monkey familiar gestured, with both middle fingers raised.  
  
“No no no no no!” Baelogji moaned. She staggered, something moving under her stolen flesh. “You don’t know what you’ve done!”  
  
“That’s funny,” Eleanore said. “I thought I knew exactly what I’d done. I modified your binding so you’ll be dragged screaming out of Marzipan and trapped in the same gem you bound Athe into.”  
  
“That was rhetorical!”  
  
“Temper, temper,” Eleanore said mildly. “Honestly, I’m somewhat curious whether Marzipan will be trapped in there with you. I’ll be taking notes. And no doubt she’ll be… ah, rather furious with you for using her body to sleep with Jean-Jacques. If she makes you suffer enough, I might even release her in a decade or so.” She scowled. “But you and your dark patron? _Never_.”  
  
“We can… we can make a deal. You don’t need to do this! I can give you power! I can… I can…”  
  
“You can do nothing,” Eleanore said firmly. “And you will do nothing ever again. Save, perhaps, amuse me. I’ll be sure to gloat at you. I might not have Mother’s record for defeating dark gods, but you’re one to add to the list. Or perhaps two. I think I’ll count Athe too.”  
  
Blue light crawled under the skin of the Madame de Montespan. She twitched and convulsed. “Damn you!” screamed one of Baelogji’s two voices. But only one of them. Because the other one whispered “Thank you.”  
  
And with a roaring hiss something dark and shadowy came tearing out of the mouth of Francoise-Athenais, pouring into the gem she held. Blue light wrapped the woman, before slowly fading. Montespan stood there for a moment, her mouth open, before she sagged and collapsed. Her vacant eyes stared up at the sky.  
  
“Oh,” Eleanore said with a tone of mild interest. She stepped over and nudged Francoise-Athenais’ empty-eyed body. She was breathing, but it was the slow, deep breaths of someone in the deepest of sleep. “Looks like her soul did get trapped in there after all. How curious. Silly, silly Marzipan. How far she’d fallen, that the spell caught her too. I’d cry for her, but I’m still rather irate about being locked in a cell for nearly six months.”  
  
Eleanore whirled and delivered a kick to a place that left Louise wincing. The body on the ground didn’t twitch.  
  
“And she’s not pretending,” Eleanore continued. “That’s always important to check. If I were her, I… well, I wouldn’t have made the same mistakes she did. But if I had, I’d be pretending to have my soul trapped so the person playing my role would turn their back on me and I could punch them in the kidneys so hard their head exploded.”  
  
Stooping down, she plucked up the crystal necklace from the fallen woman’s neck, holding it by the chain at arm’s length. The gem glistened a wet black-purple. “Disgusting,” she said softly. Stooping down, she dunked it into the snow. Gesturing her wand, she transmuted the snow around the stone into lead, before picking it up and tucking it into a belt pouch. “That should hold it until I can find a safer means of containment.”  
  
Eleanore exhaled, the smile on her face the satisfaction of a job well done. Then her expression hardened.  
  
“Now. As for the rest.” She cracked her knuckles. “Little sister, get your behind up here this instant!”  
  
Louise sank down in shock. Shaking, she edged her head above the precipice of the canal.  
  
“Oh, and take that ridiculous helmet off,” Eleanore said, folding her arms and tapping her wand against her shoulder. “It looks awful on you. Almost as bad as your dress, which is both completely unsuitable for the current climate and more generally completely unsuitable. You look like someone’s draped the dress over a hat stand which has had two cherries placed at chest height. And deep red is _not_ your colour.”  
  
The dark evil overlady of darkness and wickedness opened her mouth.  
  
“Not a word from you, young lady!” Eleanore commanded. “I’m in a good mood, so I’m prepared to be merciful. Take that stupid hat off, come home with me, and _maybe_ I won’t tell Mother what you’ve been doing. Maybe. If you’re good for the rest of your life.”


	59. Scientific Revolutions 11-5

_“I do so like watching siblings trying to kill each other. It’s nearly as funny as when one baby birdie pushes another out of the nest. The sound of those little bodies bouncing off the floor… classic. I’m just an old minion with simple tastes at heart.”_  
  
–  Gnarl

* * *

“No.”  
  
Eleanore frowned, snowflakes whirling around her. “I beg your pardon, Louise. _What_ did you just say?”  
  
Louise jutted out her chin. “I said ‘No’. Or are you as deaf as you are mean?”  
  
Silence reigned for a few seconds. Even the minions seemed shocked, or possibly confused.  
  
“You might want to reconsider your words, little sister?” Eleanore said, her tone flat. “Let’s be honest here; you know you can’t beat me. You’re a mess, while I’m nearly fresh. Do you think your rather pathetic pack of minions will help you? I’ve killed hundreds of minions over the years.” She paused. “Literally. Hundreds.”  
  
“And I said ‘No’.”  
  
Eleanore gritted her teeth. “I am trying to save your stupid life here,” she said, voice tight. “I am giving you a way out. You little idiot.”  
  
Louise took a deep breath, trying to ignore the pain in her back. “I don’t understand how you worked out it was me,” she said. She had to play for time. A little more time, and she could distract her sister or –  
  
“A transparent attempt to play for time,” Eleanore said.  
  
Louise’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, come on,” she said bitterly. “It’s not like you to pass over the chance to lecture me and show off how clever you are.”  
  
“I know you’re trying to play me,” Eleanore answered, looking down her nose at her sister. “Even if you’re right. I do know what’s going on better than you. You’re my silly little sister who doesn’t even know a fraction of the power in her heritage. Your entire plan was half-arsed, pardon my Gallian. You completely failed at disguising yourself. I mean, give me even a smidgeon of credit. There’s a short overlady with a boyish figure—”  
  
“Not boyish,” Louise muttered, trying not to blush and failing.  
  
“Oh no, I’m sorry, it’s not boyish. Boys aren’t so pathetically weak.” Eleanore leaned in, red moonlight glinting off her spectacles. “I’m amazed you can even walk around in that armour you’re so fond of with your stick-thin arms and legs.”  
  
“Oh, bravo!” Louise flared back, gripping onto her staff tight. The anger was at least helping to burn through the fear – and the aching pain of her fight against a dark goddess, too. “You made fun of the fact I’m skinny. All that brain and that’s the best you could come up with.”  
  
“Aww, diddums. Did I make you mad? Did I make you angry? Are you going to throw a tantrum?” Eleanore said, a thin smirk on her lips. “Perhaps you’re going to throw yourself to the floor and start wailing. It wouldn’t be the first time.”  
  
Her golden tamarin chittered at her, the intonation making no attempt to disguise its intent.  
  
“Quite so, Ozymandias,” Eleanore said. “As he said, are you going to accept my kindness, or am I going to have to take you out – one way or another?”  
  
The click of a flintlock’s flint being drawn back was surprisingly loud in the night-time city. It came from directly behind Eleanore.  
  
Char was looking more than a little dented from his death-by-Baelogji and subsequent resurrection. Nevertheless, she may have broken his body, but the body had served to protect his musket from the impact. It was now reloaded and pointed at Eleanore’s head. “Ha! We is minions! We has no got kindness and we ain’t asking for no kindness from you. But I got a gun and it are pointed at your head! We has won! All of minion will know of the Redvolution, and me, Char Marks, leader of the—”  
  
Eleanore’s wand twitched. “Crush,” she said softly, without even turning to face him. Two paving tiles slammed together, reducing Char to the approximate consistency, thickness and shape of a pancake. “Buck,” she added, flicking her wand again. The stone floor in front of Louise flipped up, throwing the minions standing on it into the canal.  
  
Louise swallowed.  
  
“Would you look at that? Minions can’t swim.” She nodded back to the remains of Char. “And that will be you if you don’t take the sensible option,” Eleanore said softly. “You’ll be that flat.” She looked down her nose at her little sister. “You might think that this won’t change much, but trust me, it will.”  
  
All the insults, all the patronising comments, all the petty cruelties from her big sister built up. And somewhere behind Louise’s eyeballs a dam broke.  
  
“Fireball!” she roared, left-hand rising to point at Eleanore’s head.  
  
“Shielding flame!” Eleanore snapped as her wand flicked into the perfect defence to counter a thrown fireball.  
  
Unfortunately for her, what Louise had used was not a classic fireball, and neither was it one of her newly learned magics. It was instead one of her old, malformed, miscast spells. And so rather than a ball of abyssal flame rushing into her perfect guard to be deflected, instead a concussive blast knocked Eleanore back into a snow drift.  
  
And her glasses, Louise’s true target, went flying. They hit the ground, and cracked. Eleanore’s golden lion tamarin familiar lunged for them, but a second fireball – this time truly cast through the evil of her magic – melted the brass into a puddle on bare, steaming flagstones. The familiar flinched away, chattering at Louise in a bestial tongue that nevertheless sounded utterly filthy.  
  
“You cast a fireball at my head!” Eleanore screamed, flat on her back.  
  
“Not a burning one! Just one of the ‘failures’ you used to make fun of!”  
  
“You cast. A fireball. At my head,” Eleanore said, face very red. “Oh, that is _it!_ No more Mademoiselle Nice Sister!”  
  
“You’re never nice!”  
  
“Not the point! You’re going to pay for that!”  
  
“And how are you going to do that? You’re as blind as a bat without your glasses!” Louise said, lips parted in an adrenaline snarl. “Don’t think I haven’t seen you walk into mirrors you thought were hallways!”  
  
Soot-blackened, blonde hair frizzled, Eleanore pulled herself out of the snow pile. Squinting, she glared in Louise’s vague direction. “That’s because you used to hide them, you brat!” she snapped back.  
  
“Yes! Yes I did! And now I’m going to give you a hiding!”  
  
“Oh, bravo! A little bit of repartee from a crybaby!” Eleanore took a deep breath, every motion indicating barely suppressed rage. “So. Just because you happened to inherit mother’s eyesight, you think you have the upper hand?”  
  
Louise didn’t reply, silently pacing around her sister.  
  
“You’re clever enough to keep quiet so I can’t track you by sound?” Eleanore asked. Despite her rage, the corners of her mouth curled up. “Well, you’re less stupid than the last person who thought to destroy my glasses. Whatever will I do?”  
  
A twinge of fear squirmed in Louise’s gut, fighting against the more-than-a-twinge of pain coming from her back. No one should sound that smug when they were effectively blind. It might just be that Eleanore was trying to psyche her out, but somehow she doubted that. Her big sister always had a plan – and right now, that was something Louise lacked. She didn’t have an end goal right now. She didn’t want to kill her sister, but she wasn’t so sure that her sister was willing to return the same favour.  
  
A chittering drew her attention. Eleanore’s familiar squatted on a leafless tree, a sugar-eating grin on his face. He was looking directly at her.  
  
Eleanore whipped to face Louise, eyes closed. “Granite Prison!” she snapped. Stone chains leapt out of the ground, latching onto Louise’s arms and legs and dragging her down into the snow. Face-first this time. She hit the ground hard enough that she strongly suspected some bruises on her front would be joining the ones on her back.  
  
“Got you,” said Eleanore, her voice dripping with smug self-satisfaction.

* * *

Maggat’s eyes flicked open and he vomited up a large amount of water as well as half a chicken, three handfuls of grass, and the finger of an angelic foetus. He looked up at Scyl. “Urgh, the dead place are real busy right now,” he complained, picking himself up off the broken ice of the canal.  
  
“Tell me about it,” Scyl said, diving back into the water to haul out Maxy’s floating corpse. “It are not so easy to find the right souls,” he said when he surfaced, dragging Maxy out by the arm. “And I know you would kill me if I put the wrong soul in your body.”  
  
“I would,” Maggat agreed, emptying out one of his skull pauldrons of water. “No one gets my body and loot but me.” He paused. “Didn’t Baloney kill you double-dead?”  
  
“Nah,” Scyl said casually. “She only exploded me. I got better.”  
  
“Ah, that are no problem,” Maggat said. He looked around, noting that most of the minions had gone through the ice. Fortunately the blues could swim, but they were busy fishing the bodies out. “Right, you scum!” he shouted at the straggling survivors who were busy looting the victims. “I are gonna smash you all one if you don’t get your behinds over here now!”  
  
Maxy made a sound like a deflating balloon as Scyl ran blue-glowing hands over him, forcing a jet of water spouting from his mouth. “I hate drowning,” Maxy muttered, rubbing his chest. “It are one of the least fun ways to die. At least dying when fighting not hurt because of the fighty rush.”  
  
Idly slamming two minions together who looked like they were about to think of betraying him, Maggat screwed his face up in a scowl of concentration. “The big oversister are a Hero and a very killy one too,” he said, clambering up the stairs to poke his head over the low wall. “She are probably like the Karin.”  
  
Maxy shook his head. “But that mean that if we stab her, after five days of really bad pain we die,” he said in a hushed tone.  
  
“And even if that not true about the big oversister, the overlady prob’bly kill us if we kill her,” Maggat agreed. “She are sent a metal. Not sure what kind of metal, but it are probably steel if they got it from the Karin.”  
  
Maxy crawled up next to him. “But look,” he said, pointing at the tableau before them. Eleanore was approaching her chained up sister, her familiar leering at Louise from its position on a tree. “I bet she are doing the blind swordy-man trick.”  
  
“The one where they look through the eyes of their familiar?”  
  
“Got it in one,” Maxy said, yellow eyes narrowed. “And that monkey no are related to the Karin and it no are the big oversister. I is gonna wear it as a hat. But we gotta move quick.”  
  
Maggat nodded. “Oi, you lot,” he snapped. “Blues, keep on fishing out the others. Rest of you lot, we is gonna get Maxy a monkey hat!”  
  
“You’re cheating,” the overlady shouted, struggling against her stone chains as the minions snuck around the right.  
  
“Oh?” the big oversister asked. “How is anything I’ve done cheating?”  
  
“… you’re cheating in some way! I’m sure of it!”  
  
“And that, little sister, is why you have absolutely no grasp of rhetoric. In a debate, you’re meant to substantiate your points. Throwing around wild unfounded allegations just makes you look pathetic.”  
  
Maggat scampered up and over a low snow drift, trying his best to keep out of sight. He threw himself behind a tree as the golden lion tamarin perked up, ears twitching. But coming around from the other side was Maxy, edging closer with a throwing knife in hand. He drew back his arm, carefully measuring up the angles and the distance to the little chittering thing on the tree.  
  
Swift as an eagle, the knife leapt forwards, seeking its foe…  
  
… only to hit the familiar handle-first.  
  
The monkey fell off the branch in surprise with an undignified thud and a puff of snow marking its impact with the ground. Eleanore twitched, wildly looking around. “Are you all right, Ozy?” she asked. “What happened?”  
  
Pulling himself out of the snow drift and swearing sulphurous monkey-profanities. Its eyes settled on Maxy.  
  
“Oh, very clever little sister,” Eleanore said, teeth clenched. “So you were telepathically directing your servants to attack my familiar. I didn’t think you had it in you.”  
  
“… well, of course, that was my plan all along,” Louise said quickly.  
  
“It won’t work, of course. Even if you have managed to do rather well in restoring your forces. There has to be, what, ten minions there. Such a _feared_ dark legion. None of us can sleep in our beds.”  
  
Ozymandias picked up the fallen knife, which was the size of a short sword for him. He weighted it, and clearly found it to his liking because his posture indicated he was keeping it.  
  
“Oi, give that back!” Maxy snapped. “This are why I no get to practice with throwing knifies. They always get stolen!”  
  
With his other hand, Ozymandias bit his thumb at Maxy.  
  
“Is you looking for a fight?” the minion growled.  
  
The golden lion tamarin reached out with one hand, palm facing upwards, and curled his fingers inwards in the universal gesture for ‘Bring it on’.  
  
“Come an’ have a go if you think you’re ‘ard enough!”  
  
The monkey responded with a gesture which succinctly and graphically implied that he had had conjugal relations with the minion’s mother.  
  
“Ha, joke’s on you! I don’t even have a mo—”  
  
As it turned out, the riddle of whether you could have an affair with the mother of a creature spawned from Evil and stolen life force was a mere distraction. The tamarin used the chance to close the distance. Ozymandias’ hand lashed out, faster than the eye could track, and a trail of stinking minion blood splattered across the snow.  
  
Maxy staggered, vileness oozing from his cut throat. “… ther,” was his last word.  
  
Eleanore’s familiar used the chance to steal Maxy’s purse, and then faced the other minions, grinning. His expression was a clear question as to who would be next.  
  
“That thing just looted from a minion!” one of the surviving browns managed in shock.  
  
“That are just not natural!”  
  
“Yeah, but it were Maxy. He are sort of shit for a minion. And we is all not natural,” Maggat pointed out.  
  
“Is it natural to do something not-natural to something what are not-natural?” Scyl said, popping up from behind Maggat.  
  
“Is you done with the drowny-ness?” Scyl nodded. “Maxy are needing a new throat,” Maggay said.  
  
“Then he can go loot himself one.”  
  
Maggat thumped Scyl. “He are dead, stoopid. Bring him back.” He hefted his club. “Now, you damn dirty monkey,” he growled.  
  
Ozimandias flipped him the bird, and scampered away, laughing mockingly.  
  
“After that gonna-be-a-hat!” Maggat roared and the rather small horde charged off, the blood-soaked and very annoyed Maxy at the head.

* * *

The smashing noise of minions faded into the distance, leaving a gentle silence. Snow drifted down from the sky, settling on the two figures facing each other.  
  
Louise gritted her teeth. Stupid, _stupid_ minions. While she did in fact approve of them driving away her sister’s familiar, she could really have done with them using some of their dumb muscle to break these chains tying her down.  
  
But at least her sister wouldn’t be able to see small movements now. “Ha! I chased away your familiar!” Louise said, trying to sound more triumphant than she really felt. She raised her voice, trying to make sure Eleanore couldn’t hear her trying to test the chains to see if she could twist her wrist enough to point the gauntlet at one of her bonds.  
  
Eleanore cracked her neck. “That’s funny,” she said, breathing heavily. “I thought I lured away all your vile minions.”  
  
Louise choked. “That’s not your plan!” she snapped. “I’m the one better off here! You can’t look through that thing’s eyes anymore”  
  
“I do not need to. I wanted to get you alone. So I could talk to you in without you feeling that you have to lie in front of your subordinates.” Eleanore cracked her neck, eyes narrowed. “Louise. _Why_?”  
  
“Why what?”  
  
Eleanore tapped her foot, slush squelching under her boot. “Don’t play dumb. You know exactly what I mean.”  
  
“You want the truth? You can’t h—” Wait. No. That was a very stupid thing to say. “… hate me for saying this,” she corrected.  
  
“I can and will, if I don’t like what I heard. Talk.”  
  
“Okay, okay, but you have to realise, I’m not really evil!” Louise insisted. Wriggling, she tried to curl her wrist around so the gauntlet was pointed at her chains. This was going to hurt even if it worked, but at least her sister couldn’t see her squirming right now and realise what she was doing.  
  
“You’re not really evil. Mmm. Despite the fact that you’re an evil lady of darkness who has minions serving her, consorts with a demon cult, and if my intelligence reports are correct – and they are – has an incubus, a necromancer and…” Eleanore paused, “… and a vampire serving her.”  
  
“I realise this looks bad…”  
  
“Yes. That is exactly what it looks.”  
  
“… but I just did it because the Regency Council are traitors! They made up that thing about Henrietta! Just as an excuse to seize power! I didn’t kidnap her! I rescued her! They’re the real evil ones here!” Louise took a breath. She was almost sure that she’d managed to work her hand around so she could touch one of the stone anchor points. A touch of acid should do the job, and she cast the spell under her breath. “Please! You saw that Montespan was possessed by a dark angel! All I did was try to trick Athe into destroying Baelogi, but then the stupid useless dark god proved too weak and got himself trapped!”  
  
That was enough to give Eleanore pause. She furrowed her brow, scowling down at her sister. “You may have thought you had a good reason…” she began.  
  
“I _do_ have a good reason!”  
  
“No, you do not. Mother was entirely clear. You can’t do good by doing evil.” Eleanore took a deep breath. “I understand the temptation. I really do. When the world seems so very stupid and you’re the only one who knows how to fix it and no one will let you. When the world offers you power and it only seems like a tiny little sacrifice that you can give up any time you like. When you think that the only way to fix the world is to start doing the things that you shouldn’t, that you _mustn’t_.  
  
“Do you understand? It’s the easy path out. But that’s all it is. It’s easy and it’s evil and it’s wrong. You need to fight it every day. It’s hard and it’s thankless and it means having to put up with a lot of very, very, _very_ stupid people. But…”  
  
And that was about as far as Eleanore got, because the acid had melted through the stone chains and now Louise was in a crouched position, curled up like a coiled spring.  
  
She would remember the noise her armoured fist made as it collided with her sister’s stomach for quite a long time. It felt good. Really good.  
  
Eleanore curled up around her fist, blonde hair falling forwards over her face. Louise grabbed her sister’s wand-hand with her other hand, drawing her fist back and pounding on her sister’s arm again and again until Eleanore dropped the wand. It fell to the icy ground, and as Eleanore staggered back Louise gave the wand a solid kick. It skittered along the ground, vanishing into the pools of snow and slush.  
  
Louise stepped back, watching for a trick. “I am not going to kneel and be forced to listen to you lecturing me!” she snapped. “I know what I’m doing.”  
  
Eleanore gasped for breath, bent over. “Lucky blow,” she retorted, blinking away tears of pain. “You’re just fortunate that I’m out of shape from being in a cell for six months and…” She suddenly went ghost-pale. Her eyes rolled back in her head, showing only white, and with a groan she slumped forwards. Eleanore made no attempt to break her fall, and fell like a sack of onions.  
  
Louise swallowed. Um. She stepped back cautiously, examining her gauntlet. It felt warm and kitten-like, which was either a sign that it was doing some great evil, or possibly that it had heating spells which made sure it was comfortable to wear in cold conditions. Looking around suspiciously, she checked that Magdalene hadn’t shown up and decided to help out with a surprise sleeping spell. Or, come to mention it, any of her big sister’s other vast array of enemies.  
  
But there was a surprising paucity of suspicious cloaked figures who might have used the chance to try to get dark revenge on Eleanore.  
  
Cautiously she circled her sister’s prone body. Oh. Oh dear. She didn’t seem to be breathing.  
  
Oh.  
  
No no no, this wasn’t meant to happen. Things like this weren’t meant to happen! Heroes didn’t collapse and stop breathing because you punched them in the stomach! Even if you put all your strength into it and were wearing an ancient magical artefact on your hand which was both evil and perhaps more pertinently heavy and made of metal.  
  
“Jessica? Jessica!” Louise kept one eye on her sister, just in case started moving – oh! Please! – and desperately tried to get in contact with the Abyss.  
  
“Lou—” Jessica’s voice only came in waves, filled with crackling and the screams of the damned. “Som— — —nd of spiritual interfer—— — — ——at did you do?!”  
  
“That doesn’t matter? What do you know about medicine?” Louise screamed.  
  
“—n’t hear you with the— — — — —ya get through?”  
  
“Medicine! I need help with medicine?”  
  
But there was just the screaming of the damned. “Darn it, darn it, darn it,” Louise muttered pacing back and forwards. “Why didn’t I learn any healing magic?” Well, because it had mostly involved blood sacrifice and the bits which hadn’t entailed asking dark gods to heal people, she reminded herself. Stupid useless evil magic. Why couldn’t she even save her big sister from…  
  
Wait. Louise narrowed her eyes and glared at her sister’s prone form. She remembered what Eleanore had told Montespan’s body – which even now lay some distance away from Eleanore, staring up at the sky. Eleanore had gloated about how if it was her, she’d pretend to be dead in order to get the drop on someone.  
  
“Oh, ha ha,” she told Eleanore, voice shriller than she would have liked. “I know you’re faking it. You can’t fool me. I… I’m just going to turn my back right now so you can get up and punch me a few times and… and _please_ get up, you have to be faking it!”  
  
Eleanore didn’t twitch. Her eyelids didn’t flutter.  
  
Slowly, carefully, she advanced on Eleanore watching for any trickery. Keeping her gauntlet ready, she reached out with her right hand and touched her sister’s neck, feeling for a pulse.  
  
There was nothing.  
  
“Oh no,” Louise whispered, sitting back on her haunches. “I didn’t mean to… I… it was an accident! I… I… I…” Tears blurred her vision, and she raised her face to the skies, wailing.  
  
And then Eleanore exploded up from the ground, barrelling Louise down. One arm was pressed against Louise’s neck, and the other had a firm grasp on her gauntlet, twisting the arm up and away from her.  
  
“… no!” Louise gasped, or tried at least. “I thought you… dead!” She couldn’t stop crying.  
  
“Why does everyone forget I studied with a Cathayan monk?” Eleanore whispered into Louise’s ear. “Of course I can stop my heart.”  
  
Louise decided then and there that she really hated heroes. And her big sister. Mostly her big sister, really. She kicked and fought, but she was exhausted and injured. When it came down to it, Eleanore was simply a better fighter than her. And fatter. Yes, fatter and heavier and _Founder she couldn’t breathe properly_. No matter what she did, she couldn’t dislodge the weight of her big sister or get rid of that terrifying pressure on her windpipe. And then Eleanore started working on the straps of her gauntlet.  
  
“Stop it! Fireball! Fireball! Incineration!” Louise screamed. Eleanore had removed the pressure from her throat to work on the straps and she gasped for air. She fired off mis-cast spells as she fought to get free. They did nothing. Eleanore was pointing the hand away from herself and ignored the thunderous explosions that rippled across the façade of the ruined theology department. “Get off! Stop it!”  
  
“I’m not going to let you keep that _thing_!” Eleanore grated between clenched teeth. “It’s probably what corrupted you! You’re stupid enough to stumble on such a powerful artefact of Evil and just put it on. What did it promise you?” She unfastened the last buckle.  
  
“It’s _mine!_ ” Louise roared, throwing everything she had into trying to buck free. She clenched her fist, fighting to stop her sister from stealing her gauntlet. “Mine! Mine mine mine!”  
  
Eleanore rode out her sister’s fury, repeatedly punching Louise in the left forearm until the pain made her hand relax. With a crow of triumph, she tore off the metal glove, holding it aloft.  
  
Then she cocked her head, staring at the suddenly-tarnished metal. “Oh,” she said faintly. “Oh. That’s the Ruby of… oh no. Yes, that would make sense. That would make a lot of sense. It would be h—”  
  
“Give it back!” Louise screamed, bucking like a madwoman.  
  
Eleanore hit her around the face with the heavy weight of the gauntlet. Stars spun in front of Louise’s eyes and she tasted blood. “Shut up,” Eleanore hissed. “You stupid child. You don’t even know what you have. No wonder it called to you.” She wet her lips. “It’s calling to me too. It’s warm. Like kittens. That… that utter _bastard_. That’s what he was breeding us for. All those carefully selected spouses with links to the old royalty.”  
  
“It’s evil and it’s mine and you don’t know how to use it properly and…”  
  
A punch shut Louise up. Eleanore paused and peeled back one of her sister’s eyelids back professionally, and checked her pulse.  
  
“Oh, Louise,” she said sadly. “You have fallen far.” She straightened up, and finally let the pain she’d been hiding show. It was enough that she nearly fell. Gingerly she tested her gut. From the ache, she was bleeding inside. Louise had very nearly got her there. The collapse hadn’t been entirely faked. Or even mostly faked. She needed to find a healer. And fast.  
  
Squinting, she peered around the blurred night-time landscape. She was nearly blind in this low light. There was no way she could find her wand.  
  
The gauntlet pulsed in her hands. You could use me, it seemed to say.  
  
“Shut up, vile thing,” Eleanore groaned, holding it tight to her chest. She staggered off down the path, heading towards what she hoped was the main university building. In the darkness and the snow, she honestly wasn’t sure without her glasses. “Just because Louise could channel magic through you doesn’t mean I could.”  
  
Oh, but she could, it suggested. She knew what it was. The Bloody Duke had worked so hard to concentrate the blood of the royal family in his descendants. He’d been more successful than he’d known.  
  
“Shut up!” Eleanore hissed, and then gasped in pain. It hurt to breathe.  
  
Two acceptable candidates to wear her in a single generation, the metal gauntlet pulsed. The Duke hadn’t realised he was ahead of schedule. He’d probably thought he’d have the crown in the hands of the de la Vallières before he got a true queen – but, ah, that wasn’t how things had worked out. Eleanore wasn’t quite as good as her little sister when it came to magical potential and sheer stubborn willpower – ah, but the mind was something else. In the gauntlet’s professional opinion, Eleanore’s mind was that of a true queen.  
  
Eleanore shook her head, trying to drive out the dark thoughts clouding it. Everything was blurred, and it wasn’t just the lack of glasses. She thought she had a concussion, too, from that blast from stupid little Louise. She had… she had to get rid of the gauntlet. Put it somewhere. Get rid of the temptation.  
  
But then she’d die out here. She’d collapse in the street, and never wake up. And then she’d freeze to death. It was so warm against her chest out here in the cold, and her stomach hurt so terribly much. And then what would happen to the gem she had, holding two dark gods? This was Amstrelredamme. She knew this cursed city, and knew how many people there were out there who’d want to use the crystal for dark purposes.  
  
“Shut up,” Eleanore whispered. “I know what you’re doing. Stop whispering to me!” She staggered, and fell to her knees in the snow. She wasn’t sure she could get up then. She’d have to put down the gauntlet to do so and… wait, wasn’t that something that she wanted to do?  
  
Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to try it. Just for a healing spell. Just enough to stop her dying out here in the cold so she could keep that dark gem safe. And if she put on the gauntlet, she’d have two free hands again. It’d feel nice and warm, too. Better that this evil artefact was in her hands where she could keep it safe from other people who’d use it for the wrong purposes.  
  
Eleanore could taste metal in her mouth. She wavered, the haziness of her concussion blurring her sharp wit. The blood of the de la Vallière within her welled up, screaming at her that she couldn’t die out here in the cold, felled by a sucker punch she hadn’t seen coming. She was the heir. She had to do her duty.  
  
She raised her left hand, arm shaking. She didn’t want to die. Was that so wrong?  
  
Slowly, she inserted her hand into the gauntlet.

* * *

“ _Well, well, well._ ” A female voice, speaking elegant old Romalian. “ _What do we have here? A nice, slender feminine hand. Callouses from wand use. Bitten nails. A sharp, hard mind – a royal mind. And –yes! – such glorious strength in the old blood. Strength enough to defeat the previous unworthy heir._  
  
“ _Welcome, my queen._ ”  
  
The sky burned red. A girl screamed. A woman screamed.

* * *

Deep in the depths of the Abyss, Gnarl sprawled out on a comfy lounge, his suit decidedly mussed. He sat on the lap of a handsome and horny demon, while a pair of demonesses stroked his ears. He wriggled in joy, purring slightly.  
  
And then he straitened up, frowning. Looking at the back of his left hand, he winced as the brand faded.  
  
“Well, well, well,” he observed to no one in particular. “Isn’t that interesting?”

* * *

Eleanore straightened up, idly fastening the buckles on the gauntlet with no trace of hesitancy. Without a second thought, she cast one of the dark healing spells she’d studied to know how to counter, but never used before. Bloody red magic oozed out to sink into her abdomen.  
  
Holding her hand out, she admired its new ornament. The gauntlet had shifted, becoming more elongated and more segmented. The ruby on the back gleamed with power.  
  
And then she laughed.  
  
“So this is what Louise has had all her life and never knew how to use _properly_ ,” Eleanore said. “I couldn’t believe my opinion of her talent could fall any lower. But apparently it can. As it turns out, the greatest aid the forces of Good have had in a generation is my sister’s incompetence.”  
  
Her eyes were burning a bright yellow.


	60. Is It Really A Heroic Interlude When They're All Villains Now?

**Is It Really A Heroic Interlude When They're All Villains Now?  
  
Early Spring, 12 Years Ago**  
  
The warm spring sun shone through the smoky haze that rose from the scorched grasslands. Great wings kicked up dust from the dry earth, as a titanic red dragon circled over the sacrificial clearing. Down below, a poor innocent dark-haired maiden with shiny glasses cried out in fear. She couldn’t run, though, tied as she was to a rock.  
  
The dragon sniffed. It could smell her blood. Not quite the highest grade of royal blood, but the scent of power and nobility was rich in it. Its nostrils flared. There was certainly some royalty in this girl’s heritage. How wonderful. Dry leaves scattered and whirled as it landed in front of the chained up girl. Hot air wafted from its mouth, smelling like smoke and meat, and the girl turned her face away from the stench and the furnace-like heat.  
  
“So, little girl,” the dragon said in a booming, aristocratic voice. “Who left you out for me? Such a delectable mortal delicacy. Your blood will be rich and delicious. I shall enjoy feasting on you.” Leaning in, he extended his long forked tongue, licking her from ankles to brow. “Oh, so delicious. Royalty and,” he frowned. A familiar taste. Something dark and-  
  
And then the girl was yanked down, vanishing from sight. The ground slammed shut with a thud. The dragon whirled. This had to be a trap! Tasty maidens didn’t simply vanish like that!  
  
And there! Behind him! A grey-haired young man – barely more than a boy, really – stood there, with his wand-sword raised. His breastplate gleamed in the sun, and his boots were spotless despite the dust.  
  
“Oh, you will regret that, little hero,” the dragon boomed. “I will devour you whole! Do you think your shiny armour will save you from my fire? It will not! I am the flame of the mountains, slayer of men and devourer of elves! I am Mallesan the Scarlet!” He drew in a deep breath, flame broiling in his gullet, and exhaled.  
  
The young man came apart in a shower of sparks as the flame washed over him, and the fire slammed into an invisible glass wall – some kind of ward! The flames rebounded, back onto the dragon and scorched his eyes. Thrashing around, Mallesan roared in sightless rage. Where was that man? Where was he? Blindly he exhaled, smoky red flame burning the grass all around him but there were no screams! Where were the screams?  
  
And then blinding pain struck his behind. He tried to turn and found himself caught up on something! His tail! Someone had dropped a large rock on his tail. Perhaps the one that vanishing girl had been tied to! He had seldom felt such pain before – not since that hateful red-headed hero had shot him with a cannon a few decades ago! He could feel every broken bone. Wrenching, he reared up, ready to crush these impudent little humans who dared oppose him, and…  
  
Thunder boomed.  
  
The dragon collapsed, a horse-sized hole blasted out of the soft tissue of his belly. Scorched organs slithered out of the gaping wound. Gasping for breath that wouldn’t come, Mallesan the Scarlet tried desperately to squirm loose, but he no longer had the strength to pull away from the rock. Human footsteps were approaching him from the side, but he couldn’t even turn his neck to bite.  
  
It took them several attempts and a bit of sawing to hack off his head, but all that meant was that his suffering lasted a little longer.  
  
“Well, that went well,” said Eleanore de la Vallière with a smug tone of self-satisfaction, looking down at the decapitated head. She rubbed her forehead with the back of her sleeve, leaving a smear of blood there. “Perfect shot there, Jean-Jacques.”  
  
The grey-haired young man grinned back at her, leaning against the cooling corpse of the dragon. His breastplate and sleeves were speckled with gore. “Thank you. It made it easy. Dragons are stupid – they’ve never learned to tell lightning-doubles apart from the real thing.” He paused, looking momentarily uneasy. “Uh… you did get Magdalene out of the way?”  
  
“Of course I did!” Eleanore said, highly offended. “She’s not hurt at all!”  
  
“This is disgusting!” Magdalene’s plaintive voice cried out, as she crawled out of the underground chamber. Her dress was muddy and her hair askew. “It licked me! I’m covered in dragon spit. It’s all over my glasses.”  
  
“Not hurt at all,” Eleanore emphasised.  
  
Francoise-Athenais poked her head up from the safety pit she had been hiding in. The helmet she had been wearing was blackened and far too big for her. She pulled it off with relief, dropping it with a clang. “Well, you did it,” she said to Eleanore, arms crossed. “But I still think we should have done my plan. I could easily have put a ward over its mouth just when it exhaled. The pressure would have blown its skull apart.”  
  
“We didn’t do your plan. It wouldn’t have worked, I’m sure of it. It would have noticed,” Eleanore said. “So stop complaining about it. Jean-Jacques’s lightning is the best way to kill dragons.”  
  
“But I would like to see that some time,” Wardes said hastily, earning him a smile from Francoise-Athenais. “I’m exhausted – that lightning bolt really took it out of me.”  
  
Eleanore nodded. “Well, fair enough,” she said, raising her wand and casting a flare spell overhead. The bright red flame lingered above them. “Let’s just relax for a bit while we wait for the idiots to get the courage to show up and take the head off our hands.” She grinned, and gave Françoise-Athenais a one-armed hug, pulling the shorter girl up to her chest. “And you did wonderfully! Did you see the look on its face when the fire bounced off? It was hilarious!”  
  
Françoise-Athenais smirked back. “It really was. And, hey, Mags did magnificently as bait! Get it? Mag-nificent?”  
  
There was only the chirruping of insects.  
  
“I need a bath,” Magdalene said miserably. “Um… next time, can someone else be the lure? I don’t mind doing it sometimes, but it’s always me.”  
  
“Aww, don’t fret, Mags,” Eleanore said happily, letting go of Françoise-Athenais to bound over to Magdalene. “You’re only the bait because you’re the pretty one.”  
  
Magdalene blushed. “I’m not.”  
  
“No self-confidence. Trust me, Mags, someday the boys will be all over you. For one, you’ve got the de la Vallière rack – unlike me, which is really unfair,” Eleanore said. “Doesn’t she, Jean-Jacques?”  
  
The young man looked up at the sky, blushing nearly as pinkly as Magdalene. “Um…”  
  
Eleanore crossed her arms. “Do you think I’m going to do something to you if you say something nice about Mags?” she asked.  
  
“Yes. Yes, you would. And do.”  
  
“Dang straight,” Eleanore said firmly. “Her virtue is mine to protect. I’m not going to let anyone lecherous drool over her without enacting righteous justice on them!”  
  
“Elly, how long have we known each other?”  
  
Eleanore considered the question. “Since we were one.”  
  
“Can’t you trust me enough for this?”  
  
“No,” she said firmly. “I’m her protector. Who knows what will happen if I start making exceptions?”  
  
“You leave her out as bait for monsters,” Francoise-Athenais called over, one eyebrow raised. She shifted wearily, bored by a conversation she had heard many times before. “Anyway, I like to think men are more interested in higher things. Like one’s personality. No hope for you there, Elly. You’re going to die a spinster.”  
  
“So mean,” Eleanore said, grinning. “You wound me. For your information, I am a kindly soul and always give the monsters a chance to _not_ go after Mags. And when they do, I enact righteous justice on them. That’s how it works, Fran,” she said. “Anyway, Mags can keep herself safe from monsters. Just not from boys. Isn’t that right?”  
  
“Um,” Magdalene said, the expression on her face clearly indicating that she was considering death as a preferable alternative to this conversation continuing. “Yes, you’re right.”  
  
“Dang straight I am,” Eleanore agreed affably.

* * *

  
**Late Spring, 12 Years Ago**  
  
The lecture hall at the Tristain Academy of Magic was humming with conversation. The windows were thrown wide open and birdsong crept in, but it was still stiflingly hot. Eleanore de la Valliere had been careful to arrive early and reserve a window slot, and now had her nose in a book.  
  
She had an arrangement with most of her class. They didn’t bother her, and she didn’t bother them. It was the kind of fair, equitable arrangement she was a great supporter of. Unfortunately, some of them seemed to think that this peace treaty was something they could casually violate on a whim.  
  
“Oi, you.”  
  
She ignored the boy.  
  
“Hey! Eleanore! You!”  
  
Ignoring continued to occur.  
  
“Hey, witch!”  
  
Eleanore looked up, pushing her thick glasses back onto her nose with the air of a knight lowering his visor. She directed a pink-eyed glare up at the person who was intruding on her personal time with her book.  
  
Antoine du Lot was, in Eleanore’s quite established opinion, a blockhead with the mental capacity of a dead pig. This would make him a perfect candidate for the dragon knights when he was older, because they were looking for people too stupid to realise the risks of sitting on something that could breathe fire, ice, poison, or other things you didn’t want between your legs. It would do wonders to stop him from passing his defective bloodline on. She’d vocalised this opinion more than once in the past. To his face.  
  
“What is it?” she asked, each syllable enunciated clearly.  
  
“Move, would you _kindly_? You’re hogging four seats and it’s far too hot in here.” He was a big boy – not just overweight, but also well-developed around the shoulders. He wasn’t lazy, but he liked his food too much and in this hot weather he sweated like the pig he was. His dark hair was lank on his brow.  
  
Eleanore considered her options. “No,” she said, after due consideration. “I’m saving these seats for my friends.”  
  
“Move, witch. Get out the way.”  
  
“No, I won’t.”  
  
Antoine spread his hands. “Hey, I asked her, didn’t I? Kindly and everything. But I just guess she had to keep on being the witch.”  
  
“No, I just don’t want to do what an ill-mannered dog like you orders me to do.”  
  
“Because you’re a witch.”  
  
“And you’re a dog, Antoine. A barking little cur from an ill-bred family of merchants,” Eleanore snapped. She really hated that nickname – and he knew it. It was why he used it at every chance. And immediately she knew she’d made a huge mistake and she should have just ignored him.  
  
He knew he’d pressed a nerve. “Bluh bluh bluh, listen to the big huge witch. A de la Vallière, bringing family into things. Sounds like a threat to me.” His eyes flicked to her hair. “How many babies had to die last time you washed your hair, Vallière?”  
  
“Not enough,” one of Antoine’s cronies contributed. “I thought their baby killing was meant to make them pretty.” He sniggered. “Guess Magdalene is just better at it than you.”  
  
“Leave her out of this,” Eleanore snarled, fingers twitching.  
  
“Why?” Antoine asked, grinning for his posse. “She’s a witch just like you. Her father’s a traitor, and you know it runs in the blood. The de la Vallière blood. A traitor and a babykiller. It’s in the history books, clear to see. It’s amazing Jean-Jacques can stand you.”  
  
“I don’t know. She has quite the tongue on her,” another of his friends said, smirking. Armand was a snivelling little redhead, a born-hanger on.  
  
“Duel.” The words escaped Eleanore’s lips like a whipcrack. “You slander me and you think you can _get away with it_? I know you, Armand. And—”  
  
“Th-that’s not allowed! Duelling got banned. B-because of you,” Armand said, backing away.  
  
Eleanore smiled despite her churning fury, pushing back her glasses. Anticipation gleamed in her eyes. “Oh, I won’t tell. Or maybe you’re just a coward. Someone hiding behind Antoine. A louse on the back of a dog. Say, isn’t there some question about your heritage? Wasn’t your father on campaign nine months before you were born – and don’t you look a trifle Germanian to me?” She leaned forwards. “In fact, if I recall my history correctly, there was a dragon infestation on your lands about that time. Remedied by the eldest son of the von Zerbsts.”  
  
Armand shrank back, and Eleanore moved in for the kill. “And well done, Antoine,” she said loudly and clearly. “I’m amazed that you were able to pay such close attention to the history books. You managed to bring up what my grandmother did. The same grandmother I have never met because my father imprisoned her. You managed to read about something that happened years and years ago, rather than anything more recent.” She put one finger to her mouth in mock surprise. “Oh, did you find it out in your oh-so-private study sessions with Melissa?”  
  
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he blustered, suddenly reddening.  
  
“Really? Because you went to a lot of effort to not be seen. If only you’d put that effort into not being heard, considering how close you were to my bedroom window. But wait, Antoine, aren’t you courting Annette? Does she knows about your… study sessions?” she said, to sniggers. “Well, do you, Annette?”  
  
Red with mortification and anger, a dark-haired girl glared daggers at the hapless Antoine. “I certainly did not!”  
  
“It’s not like that, Ann! We were just going over, um...”  
  
“Human biology,” Eleanore contributed with saccharine helpfulness, producing a wave of laughter.  
  
“Oh, isn’t it? Then why are you being like that!”  
  
“She’s just making it up!”  
  
Eleanore laughed. “Oh, Antoine. When do I ever lie about these things? I’m not like _you_.” The last word came out with unexpected vitriol, and she bit back on it. “You’re a lying, cheating dog. You betray Annette who’s a far better person than you’ll ever be. And you decide to get in my face because I _dared_ to save seats for my friends?” She paused deliberately. “If you think I’m lying, you’re welcome to challenge me,” she said. “If I’m just making this up about you, we’ll take this outside and you can do your best to prove it – and I’ll publicly apologise for my words if Lord and Founder are on your side.”  
  
The light glinted off her glasses.  
  
“Or are you too chicken?”  
  
That afternoon, Françoise-Athenais went looking for Eleanore and found her up an apple tree. Her familiar was hanging from a branch above her, napping.  
  
“Did you get in another duel?” she asked, hands on her hips as she glared up at her friend.  
  
“What makes you think that?”  
  
“The fact that half the paving tiles in the main courtyard have been shattered. Plus, the fact that Antoine is in the infirmary with four broken limbs and a fractured jaw.”  
  
“He tripped and fell.”  
  
“You know duelling’s banned.”  
  
“But of course,” Eleanore said innocently. “That’s why he tripped and fell. If we’d been duelling, why, we’d have been breaking school rules. But he just fell over.”  
  
“And broke all the paving in the main courtyard?”  
  
“He’s quite overweight.”  
  
Running her hands through her green hair, Françoise-Athenais sighed. With a flick of her wand and a muttered incantation, she levitated up into the tree. “You’re going to get in trouble. Again. And don’t start with the stupid ‘he fell’ thing. Everyone knows he’s a little baby who’ll tell.”  
  
“Well, he won’t be slandering me for a good while with a broken jaw,” Eleanore said, stretching in a self-satisfied manner.  
  
The two girls rested in silence, listening to the distant voices in the school. A little bird flew up to Montespan, hovering around her and chirruping. Francoise-Athenais sat back on the branch, offering her finger for it to land on. “Why do you provoke people like that?” she asked softly.  
  
“I don’t. They started it.”  
  
The shorter girl sighed. “Yes, yes. And you always make sure to finish it, don’t you?”  
  
Eleanore shrugged. “If they don’t want trouble from me, they shouldn’t go after me - or Mags. Or you for that matter. And it makes everyone else laugh. Better they’re laughing at idiots like Antoine than siding with him.”  
  
Reaching out, Francoise-Athenais let the little bird balance on her finger. “I just think you’re making enemies. You know the saying? When all you use is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.”  
  
Eleanore rolled her eyes. “Yes, perhaps for peasants. But I have a wand. I don’t need a hammer.”  
  
“… I can’t help but feel you’re missing the point.”  
  
“What’s there to hit?” Eleanore flicked her hair back. “Less than two more years left of this miserable school, and then I’ll be off to university. Or maybe we’ll just take a few years out to really do some good in the world. I don’t need friends here. I just need them to leave me alone. And stop calling me a witch.”  
  
“They call me a witch too,” Françoise-Athenais said, with a mono-shouldered shrug. “If they’re so stupid, why do you let them get to you?”  
  
“It’s easy for you to say,” Eleanore said, tilting back her head until her glasses caught the light. “You don’t have to live under the shadow that Mags and I do. You’re from the _good_ side of my family.”

* * *

  
**Summer, 12 Years Ago**  
  
Bright blue butterflies fluttered around a stream on the de la Vallière lands. Twenty years ago this place had been a gnarled murder-copse where the family’s hunting beasts dwelled, but the new head of the family had not approved. There were no trees here anymore, and neither were there any murderous magical abominations made from hounds. The stream was new. The current duchess did not cut corners when spring-cleaning.  
  
Skirt rolled up, Cattleya de la Vallière waded through the water, butterfly net in hand. The ten-year old’s pink hair had lighter streaks from the summer sun, and her pale skin was mildly sunburnt. The determined, stubborn look on her face was pure-bred de la Vallière as she contemplated how to best capture her target, kill it, and preserve its dried body in her collection. Even if most de la Vallières tended to apply that expression more to lèse majesté than lepidoptery.  
  
“Catt!” Eleanore called out, looking up from her book. She was meant to be watching her little sister, but the two of them had an arrangement. Cattleya didn’t do anything to get herself in trouble, and in return Eleanore paid more attention to her book of Romalian philosophical arguments. “Not too far!”  
  
“But the butterflies are flying this way! Come on, come on!”  
  
Eleanore sighed, and rose. “It’s your own fault if you get sunburnt,” she informed Cattleya. She saw a figure coming the other way along the footpath. “Jean-Jacques? What are you doing here?”  
  
“Ooooh! Someone’s got a _vi-si-tor_ ,” Cattleya sing-sang. “Are you _courting_?”  
  
“Shut it, Catt,” Eleanore hissed. “Don’t you dare embarrass me!”  
  
“Why don’t you give him a big sloppy kiss?” Cattleya suggested.  
  
“I will drag you back to the nursery and lock you in there with Louise and remove the door, so help me!”  
  
Cattleya clambered out of the river and stomped over to Wardes, dripping water onto his boots. “I know when I’m not wanted,” she said, with false maturity. “I’ll leave you two alone for some private time. So you can get kissy.”  
  
Jean-Jacques blinked, blushing faintly. “Um.”  
  
With a flick of her wand and a snapped spell, Eleanore snapped up a quartet of stone walls from the ground to seal Cattleya in a pyramid. “Little brat! We are not courting! He’s your fiancé! Not mine!”  
  
“That’s not fair! I’m telling on you!” a muffled voice came from inside the stone trap.  
  
“Jean-Jacques,” Eleanore said, taking a deep breath. “How about we leave my _utter little pain_ of a sister here and actually talk?”  
  
He still seemed distracted. “Yes, yes… that would be good,” he said. The two of them walked around the bend in the river, leaving a loudly complaining Cattleya trapped. He took a deep breath. “My mother is dead,” Jean-Jacques said, his voice cracking.  
  
“Oh. Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry,” Eleanore said, after a moment of shocked silence. She took a breath. “I knew she was ill, but…”  
  
“Call it what it was. My mother was mad,” he said shoulders slumped. “I can’t dress it up in pretty words. She was confined to a tower so she wouldn’t hurt herself or the servants.” He sighed, shuddering. “I took her out for a walk and… and she fell down the stairs. When I was meant to be watching her. She broke her neck. One moment alive and… and then the next dead.”  
  
“Oh. Well… at least she didn’t suffer,” Eleanore said slowly.  
  
“No. No, she didn’t. That’s… that’s something,” Wardes said. “Better something clean and quick. The… the funeral is planned and—”  
  
“I’ll be there,” promised Eleanore.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
They sat in silence, staring over the water, with only Cattleya’s distant whining to break the summer peace.  
  
“I suppose that means you’re the viscount now,” Eleanore said. “That’s a lot of responsibility.”  
  
“It is, yes.”  
  
“We can delay the summer trip to go kill that band of orcs if you want. We’ll all be there for you.”  
  
Jean-Jacques shook his head. “I’ll need a break,” he said glumly. “So many things to worry about, so much paperwork and effort to set her affairs in order. My mother’s seneschal is helping me, thank goodness. I’d be lost without him.”  
  
“That’s good. He’s a fine fellow, as I recall.”  
  
“He is. But… well, I went through her papers while I was looking to see if she’d left any instructions,” Wardes said, sitting back. He seemed to want to talk. “There was so much about her I didn’t know. Did you know, she used to be part of a high end magical commission working for the Crown?”  
  
“An evil magical commission?” Eleanore asked instantly, eyes narrowing. They’d had problems with those manner of things before.  
  
“No, no. One which searched through old legends to try to find out more about ancient evils that might break free or pose a threat to the Queen.” He sighed. “Though perhaps much evil was done from those good intentions. From some of the notes I’ve found – I think something she found might have driven her mad.”  
  
Eleanore crossed her arms. “Well, that’s simple,” she said firmly. “We’ll just get the gang together, and we’ll search your castle from top to bottom until we find any secret rooms or hidden chambers where she kept her notes!”  
  
“Hah. You’re funny, Elly.”  
  
“I wasn’t joking!”  
  
Jean-Jacques scooped his hair back. “I’d rather not have any of you deploy your normal problem-solving techniques to my home,” he said. “I have to live in it afterwards.”  
  
“I wouldn’t demolish your house.” Eleanore paused. “Though perhaps I couldn’t say so much for Fran. But I swear, we’d dig out whatever old secrets and legacies you wanted! We’re good at that!” Her face fell. “Like that book.”  
  
He exhaled. “Yeah. That one. The one they nearly burned. I’ve been thinking about it.”  
  
“Don’t,” Eleanore advised him. “It was probably all lies. Don’t brood over it. Just put it out of mind.”  
  
“Then why did you tell us to keep it away from Mags and Fran?”  
  
“Because even lies can have power. If I listened to lies, I’d…” Eleanore paused, pursing her lips. “Everyone at school says I’m going to be a villain when I grow up,” she said, picking up a stone and irritably tossing it into the water. “Everyone. Even some of the teachers. Just because I’m a de la Vallière. And it’s even worse for Mags, because she’s soft and adorable but people don’t see that! They just see that her father tried to kill that grand duke! If we listened to those… those hurtful lies they say about us, we couldn’t…” She took a deep breath. “Did you hear what they were saying during the springtime summoning ritual? Madame Bounard muttered ‘trust that girl to summon something that’s nearly a goblin’.”  
  
“But you don’t listen,” Jean-Jacques said, reaching out and squeezing her hand.  
  
“No. Of course not. But that’s why we shouldn’t let anyone know about that book. It’d just upset them for no benefit. Better that it’s forgotten.”  
  
“Yes. Yes, of course you’re right.” The boy looked out over the estate, ignoring the distant yelling from the Catt in a stone box. “You’re right,” he said. “They are lies. And you’re going to be a famous hero one day. I know you are. That’s good. We’re going to need heroes when we’re older.”  
  
Eleanore grinned cockily. “It’s funny you should mention that,” she said, leaning back against the tree, her previous dark mood gone. “Oh yes. I’m putting together something. It should impress everyone. Even Mother! It’ll certainly shut everyone up! No one will be able to doubt that I’m as good as her! And it might even make things easier for Catt and the Brat if we don’t have _that_ darkness hanging over their heads.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“It’s a secret,” Eleanore said, voice lilting. “I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”  
  
“I can help.”  
  
She turned to face him, eyes bright. “You mustn’t help! I have to do it alone! Or else they’ll just say it was you who did it and I only _helped_ you.”  
  
“I’ll stop them!”  
  
“They won’t listen! Jean-Jacques, your head is like a rock sometimes. They say you’re the one who does everything already. They make dirty jokes about how we’re just your girlfriends. ‘Wardes keeps three girls around so he’s up all night. It makes it fairer for the monsters’. I hate it, I really do!”  
  
He frowned. “But you’re like a sister. We’ve known each other since we were babies. That’s just… eww.”  
  
“I know that and you know that, but no one else cares!” Eleanore slumped down, her momentary good mood entirely gone. “Why am I even talking about this? Listen to me, being so selfish and venting on you when your mother is dead. I should be consoling you, not burdening you with my own issues. I’m such a horrible person.” She took a deep breath. “Look, I’ll handle things. You know I can. We’ll… we’ll go retrieve Catt and then we can go to Father and tell him the bad news about your mother. And… Founder, what about the engagement?”  
  
“Give your parents some credit,” Wardes said, pulling himself to his feet and offering his hand to her. Eleanore ignored it, springing to her feet and dusting her dress down. “It’ll be years until Cattleya is old enough – and your father did say that if she doesn’t want to go through with it, he won’t make her. He knew I was the heir and Mother was ill. It won’t change his mind.” He smiled wearily. “Is this what being sixteen feels like? I think I hate this year.”  
  
Eleanore gave a timid smile back. “It’s not like it can get much worse, right?”


	61. Realignment 12-1

_“Them elfies got spies ever’where. I’s knows it, I do. They’s got it in for the royal family, Foundersavethequeen, yes they do’s. It was elves what stole away the crown prince when he was a babe an’ that’s why that Prin’ess Henrietta was th’ ‘eir, even though she ain’t no better than she should be. They covered it up and pretend there weren’t no crown prince, but Ol’ Phil hears, yes ‘e does. An’ they killed the ‘eir to the Gallian throne wit’ poisoned snails an’ they drove his wifey mad an’ they killed Pope Obliteratus II back when I was just yay high. Makes you think what the elfies ‘ave got in for them, don’t it?”_  
  
–  Ol’ Phil, Uneducated Horse Herder

* * *

“After it!” Maggat hollered, leaping up onto a wall to chase Ozymandias. The tamarin was fast, curse it, and able to wriggle through small places. It was also entirely aware that minions couldn’t swim and its path kept on criss-crossing canals and running over thin ice. It led them on a hazardous path across the city, crashing through closed market stalls and wrecking parks.  
  
“I gotta… I gotta…”  
  
“Keep running, Coddy, or I feed you your own face!”  
  
Ozymandias leapt up over the rim of a small crater and onto a wooden box, dancing around with both middle fingers raised.  
  
Two screams echoed through the night. A wave of evil energy pulsed through Amstelredamme, extinguishing flames and bringing with it a faint smell of sulphur. As one, the minions froze, wincing in pain as the mark on the back of their left hands faded.  
  
Bright yellow light flared in the eyes of the golden lion tamarin, and it seemed to swell up, gaining muscle. Ozymandias grinned, baring fangs that were suddenly rather more prominent.  
  
“Well, um.” Maxy swallowed. “I think that mean that the big oversister are now the overlady and the overlady are now the little oversister. What are we gonna do now?”  
  
Ozymandias made a gesture that was lurid, explicit, and boded very poorly for Maxy.  
  
The brown blanched. “When I say I are a famous para-moor,” he began.  
  
“We are gonna go help the old overlady,” Maggat said firmly, hefting his club.  
  
“Sod that,” Coddy disagreed, to an approving chitter from Eleanore’s familiar. “The old overlady what are now the little oversister were the one what put you in charge, so you ain’t the boss of me. And I’m saying we is gonna do what we always do and we go work for the new overlady.” He gave a nervous thumbs up to Ozymandias. “We is on the same side now, so… uh, there ain’t no need to do that.”  
  
Ozymandias’ malicious expression strongly indicated that while he agreed, the only reason for that was because Coddy had used a double negative; something that went entirely unnoticed by the minions.  
  
“Yeah, yeah. That are wicked news,” Coddy said. He hefted his sawn-off halberd, nervously polishing the telescope he’d tied to it. “Just tell me what you wanna do, boss, and I’ll tell the others. All tacty-cool at the ten-four.”  
  
“But…” Maggat began.  
  
“I hope you ain’t a traitor, Maggat,” Coddy said, playing with his halberd in a way which strongly hinted that he was lying. “‘Cause traitors get double-dead. I are Captain Coddy, and I captain the ship and I is way more important than you. Way more important for the new overlady. Got it?”  
  
“… yeah, I is all loyal. You don’t wanna have no problem with me or anyone else,” Maggat said, sweating despite the cold. An idea struck him. “So I is gonna be super loyal, boss Coddy, and look for any other dead minions with Maxy and Scyl so we can bring them back to serve the new overlady. Then we is gonna conquer an’ loot this place, so we need lotsa minions.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, that was a great plan of yours to give us all the hard work,” Maxy added quickly. “And there are no need to leave anyone to watch us.”  
  
Coddy puffed himself up. “Ha! I see what you is trying. You is sneaky, Maxy. You got some green in you. No, I is leaving Roger and Niner with you to carry out my plan, so you is not doing anything you is not meant to. And you better find me more minions, got it?”  
  
“Oh, no, my plan to be sneaky are ruined,” Maxy said, one hand pressed melodramatically to his brow. “If only I are a green. But I are outwitted by how smart Captain Coddy are.”  
  
“Get to it, you rats! Rest of you, we is following the new boss,” Coddy ordered. Maggat, Maxy and Scyl made desultory attempts to search the area while the others marched off, heading back to where the screams had come from.  
  
“Why you gotta do that?” Maggat hissed, shuffling his feet as he directed a hateful glare back at the two strangers. “There are now Coddy’s buddies watching us! I were just gonna go look for her old overlady ‘cause I’ll be double-dead before I do what Coddy tells me to”  
  
Surprisingly, it was Scyl that answered. “‘Cause I ain’t seen the oversister yet.”  
  
Maggat blinked. “Yes we did. She are now the overlady.”  
  
“No, the other one. The one who are the oversister no matter which one are the overlady.”  
  
“… wait, she are here?”  
  
Maxy nodded, slapping Scyl on the back hard enough to knock the air out of him. “Yeah. I talk to minions in the dead place what we didn’t bring back. The ones that went through the glowy sky portal. An’ they say she are cut into lots of bits by the henchess and tossed through in a coffin. We gotta find it. She are probably still dead. But we got Roger and Niner. And I are thinking she are gonna need some life energy.” Knives flashed in his hands. “And when a vampy eat your life energy, it make you double-dead.”  
  
“That are a thing,” Maggat said, hefting his club with the pleased expression of a minion contemplating permanently lethal violence against another minion that tried to steal something that belonged to it. “That certainly are a thing.”

* * *

Louise opened her eyes, staring up at the speckles of stars visible through the tattered clouds.  
  
She felt… good. Quiet. Peaceful. Like she’d been listening to the background roar of a crowded city for a very long time and for the first time she knew what true silence of the countryside sounded like.  
  
Oh wait. There was the pain. She let out a faint moan as her body tallied up its debts. Back; one solid bruise. Left arm; sprained and battered. Mild concussion from being punched in the head. Very cold. Every muscle aching, including a few she didn’t even know she had. A ringing in her ears. It would be so easy to just lay here and close her eyes.  
  
Louise levered herself up into a sitting position despite that, only screaming a few times. Her body didn’t get to tell her what to do. She rubbed her cheeks, trying to get her head back into the game. Huh. Rubbing her cheek with her left hand didn’t hurt. She wasn’t wearing her gauntlet.  
  
She wasn’t wearing her gauntlet.  
  
Owlishly, Louise peered around, trying to put the last few hours into order in her head. Which was cold. Because her helmet was missing for some reason. She’d been a fool and tried to use Evil to fight Evil and had succeeded too well. Yes. She’d tricked Athe into fighting Baelogji and Baelogji had won. Then… then she’d basically beaten Baelogji and then Eleanore had shown up and stolen her victory. And then…  
  
“Oh no,” Louise whispered hoarsely, staring at her hand. If she’d been lucky, her sister had just taken the gauntlet and was going to take it back to be sealed in the family vault.  
  
She didn’t think she was that lucky. In fact, she knew she wasn’t that lucky. Because in front of her was a pool of ice on the ground, and Louise could see her star-lit reflection.  
  
Her eyes weren’t glowing.  
  
Her de la Valliere heritage raged within her, but Louise paid it no attention. It meant nothing to her. Not compared to the stronger set of instincts now surging to life. Her sister had either been possessed by the Gauntlet or simply embraced the title of overlady. Probably the latter given how much the Old Duke had gone on about how he had been breeding the bloodline for this.  
  
And that couldn’t be permitted to stand. With such power, Eleanore would be a de la Vallière of the old school. Louise would not tolerate that. She was going to stop her sister. One way or another.  
  
She screwed her eyes shut and opened them again, ignoring the pounding in her head. Now if she remembered correctly, she’d kicked her sister’s wand just about over… there. All the way on the other side of this snowy field. And uphill. She must’ve rolled down the slope after Eleanore knocked her out.  
  
Louise groaned. Dang it. Okay. Okay. First step was to stand up, then she could take the second step which was to take a first step. Then came the third step which would be her second step.  
  
Unfortunately, by her estimation this was going to be a hundred-step plan. At least.  
  
“Sugar,” she muttered.  
  
Well, being rude wasn’t going to help get that wand. She just had to stand up. On the count of three. One, two, two and a half, two and three quarters, two and five eighths… wait, that was less than three quarters. Tears blurred her eyes. Fine. She had to admit that her legs had gone to sleep, laying here in the cold, and she couldn’t stand.  
  
So she’d just have to crawl.  
  
Something silver-white approached her in the night. Louise squinted, until she realised what it was. It was a horse that came to a point. The violence must have smashed open the university stables and released the mounts.  
  
“Oh dear,” she whispered. Her luck with equines was non-existent. “Please don’t impale me, Monsieur Unicorn.”  
  
The unicorn approached her, hooves clattering against the icy cobbles. The beast paused in front of her. Louise tensed herself up, preparing to run. Uh, crawl.  
  
It licked her from chin to hairline.  
  
It was so unexpected that she froze up entirely. Face covered in warm horse saliva, Louise tried to work out what was happening. She somehow felt better, and she could see a faint glow coming from her arms and legs, like they’d been coated with glowing paint. She knew unicorns could lend people their strength, but... “Are… you trying to make my face freeze over?” she tried.  
  
The unicorn rubbed itself against Louise, whinnying faintly. Its bulk was so pleasantly warm in the cold midwinter.  
  
“Ah ha! You’re planning to push me in a river! Again!” That had been a very unpleasant seventh birthday.  
  
It turned its head back to her, and directed a horsey glare her way. It quite expressively informed her that she was being silly, and that she needed to stand up before she froze.  
  
Louise blushed. Well, she _did_ fit the technical qualifications for receiving spontaneous aid from a unicorn. She’d just never faced anything less than premeditated malevolence from any kind of horse.  
  
“If this is genuine and not some horse-ish trick… thank you,” she said gratefully.  
  
The unicorn lowered its head, and tapped the ice in front of her. An image started to form in the ice, wavering and uncertain. A figure with glowing yellow eyes and her gauntlet was stomping through the university grounds, holding a glowing ball of magic aloft. Where, she couldn’t tell. Maybe she might have been able to tell if it had been daylight, but at night and in the snow she had no chance at all.  
  
However, one thing in particular caught Louise’s attention.  
  
“She stole my helmet! She even stole my dang helmet!”

* * *

Everything around Eleanore was blurred and uncertain. That was not some kind of metaphor; merely a product of the fact her brat of a little sister had destroyed her glasses. But within her heart her one steel-hard rule had broken and now the future was filled with limitless possibilities, if only she could just pick them out.  
  
Holding a magical illuminating orb aloft in her left hand, she trailed her unarmoured hand along the wall. This was the Vanderbough building, where the useless scholars of literature resided. Pointless. Entirely pointless. There was nothing here to benefit her. And the master of the faculty of literature was one of Francoise-Athenais’s toadies.  
  
Eleanore paused, tilting her helmeted head. One of Francoise-Athenais’s… or one of Baelogji’s? An interesting question. A very interesting question. Louise might have been a fool who let evil consume her heart, but she had been right about one thing. The regency council was incontrovertibly corrupt. They hadn’t known that Montespan was consorting with demons – or more likely, they had chosen to turn a blind eye. Jean-Jacques was sleeping with her, so Eleanore had to assume that he had been tainted. And Richelieu was ambitious above all else. In the past that had driven him to excel at enforcing the law, but perhaps he’d run out of challenges. He’d sell his soul to a demon if he felt he was coming out on top in the deal.  
  
The very fact they’d tolerated her unlawful and unjust imprisonment for six months – _six months_ – was proof enough of their corruption. So she’d just have to assume all of their servants were likewise tainted by evil. They had whatever was coming to them. And oh my, she had so many spells that she could use to revenge herself on them.  
  
Gritting her teeth, Eleanore forced herself to focus. No, she mustn’t get distracted by a rampage destroying everyone who’d dared to imprison her out of petty-minded jealousy of her power. She had her goals. That was what she needed to get done. She too was tainted by evil, but she was aware of what afflicted her. Her magic wasn’t working properly – probably because of some wretched curse from Louise! – and she _had_ to draw on the evil power that now afflicted her. She might be damning herself by doing this, but this didn’t matter. Everyone said she was evil. Everyone always had. She’d tried so long and so hard to prove them wrong, but all that had ever earned her was more disdain and more whispers behind her back.  
  
Well, damn them all too! If she was always cursed to be afflicted by evil thanks to her tainted heritage – and now she knew how deep that went – then she might as well embrace it and snatch up all the power she could get to serve her own ends!  
  
Footsteps pattered in the snow ahead of her. A whispered spell, and coiling smoky red fire twisted out of her left hand to form a sword. “Stop!” she barked.  
  
An exasperated barking chided her for failing to see who it was.  
  
“Oh, Ozymandias,” Eleanore said softly, letting the fire fade. She picked up her familiar and hugged him close to her as she groomed his fur with the fingers of her right hand. “How are you feeling?”  
  
The tamarin chittered, clambering up onto her back.  
  
“You are quite alright?”  
  
He bobbed his head up and down, shaking his left hand at her as if he wanted her to see something.  
  
“I’m sorry if you were hurt by what happened.” She paused, looking through his eyes at the gaggle of minions that had trailed behind him. “And you let these _things_ follow you?”  
  
One of them stepped forwards, adjusting the set of his stolen captain’s hat and holding a short halberd with a telescope tied to it. “Well, boss-overlady, you is the boss of us now and I are just wanting to say that I, Coddy, are gonna be your most loyal servant. I never liked that shortie overlady. I is sure you are gonna lead us in much more smashy and looty battles. An’ on top of that, I is ready to make sure that none of the minions is gonna have any split loyalties or any junk like that. Just tell me what to do an’ I’ll make it happen.”  
  
Eleanore froze in place, her eyes narrowing. Slowly she smiled, or at least she bared her teeth. “I see,” she said, tone studiously neutral. She looked down at the minions, in all their eager brain-dead enthusiasm, and her fingers twitched. Ozymandias chattered in her ear, and she smiled a slow, cruel smile. What spell would be best to eradicate these creatures?  
  
Her gauntlet chimed, and a wavering blue magical projection of a wizened old goblin appeared in front of her. “Ah, your maliciousness,” it said cheerfully. “May I be the very first to congratulate you on the way you have seized power. I do so like a little usurpation. They’re one of my favourite things to do that starts with the letter ‘u’.”  
  
Eleanore’s expression did not change. “You are Gnarl the Gnarled,” she said.  
  
“Right in one, your dark majesty,” Gnarl agreed.  
  
“When I was younger, I once tried to hunt you down and kill you.”  
  
“Is that so? Well, your wickedness, you did not find me – because I was stuck in a cage being used as an advisor by a dreadfully stupid lower-class vampire. I would have loved to have met you. But the previous overlady freed me, and so here I am, ready to advise you?”  
  
“Have you no loyalty?” Eleanore asked, voice harsh.  
  
“Oh, plenty. I am loyal to the position of the overlord – or overlady, whoever can take the power. Thus, for the moment I am loyal to you, as your most trusted advisor.” Eleanore snorted at that, but Gnarl chose to ignore her. “Now, the first thing I would advise that you do is to re-perform your familiar ritual. That will – ah ha – prime you for the acceptance of—”  
  
“No.”  
  
Gnarl blinked. “What?”  
  
“I don’t need another familiar. I have Ozymandias, don’t I?” She ran her fingers through his fur, and he hummed to himself. “Yes I do. I don’t need a gaggle of moronic goblins. I would call them too stupid to live, but one of their noted traits is also being too stupid to stay dead.”  
  
“That are what blues is for,” one of the minons contributed happily. “Death are but a gate, an’…”  
  
Eleanore gestured and his head went flying. It landed with a noise like a dropped melon, and started immediately seeing use as a football by the others. “And on top of that, they’re not exactly hard to kill. They’re not even effective killers; they couldn’t even catch my Ozymandias. So, no, I see no conceivable use for minions – and very little for you. I have my own plans, thank you very much.”  
  
Ozymandias gestured at the floating blue form of Gnarl with both hands, middle fingers raised.  
  
“Your dark wickedness…”  
  
“My God, you’re really trying too hard. Your dark wickedness. Really? Could you be any more unctuous? Go molest some sheep or do whatever minions do when they don’t have an overlady. I’m busy.”  
  
And with that said, she marched off, guided by her familiar’s sight. Gnarl did not break the connection, and stayed there, floating beside her, but she refused to listen. She knew where she was going and wasn’t prepared to bow to him – to _anyone_. The other minions, caught up in unfamiliar feelings of unfamiliarhood, trailed behind her for want of anything better to do.

* * *

“Can’t you get sound on that… um, horn magic? It would be jolly useful to hear what she’s saying,” Louise asked the unicorn. It shook its head. “Well, darn. I’m sure you tried your best.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t suppose you would be so kind to help me over to… uh, about there?” she asked, gesturing to where she thought the wand had landed. “It’s up the slope. I would try, but,” she winced, “I am in quite a fair bit of pain. In fact, I don’t believe I can really walk without your help, and so I think it would be better for you to save your strength.”  
  
Bowing its head, the unicorn bent its knees and helped her bonelessly drape herself across its back. It was wonderfully warm compared to the snow all around, and she hugged on tight.  
  
With great care and delicacy, the unicorn trotted across the snowy ground and up the slope. Rather than drop her off, it started poking around in the puddles with its horn, whinnying when it found something. Bending down, it picked up the wand in its teeth and dropped it in the snow.  
  
“Thank you, Monsieur Unicorn,” she said, feeling quite overcome with gratitude. This was the nicest unicorn she had ever met. It hadn’t tried to kill her once. She slithered back down into the snow, and immediately regretted it. The sun had to rise _some_ time. Though not for hours probably, given that the horizons were still dark. Founder, she hated winter.  
  
Louise’s back protested as she stooped and picked up the wand, holding it tight. She’d never been much good with them. She vaguely wondered what had happened to hers. It’d been in the tower somewhere, but she’d stopped using it when she had the gauntlet and her magic staff.  
  
“Flame!” she whispered, calling on the fires of Evil to warm her up.  
  
Nothing happened. The unicorn whinnied.  
  
“... this normally never happens to me. I must just… just be tired.” Louise huffed on her hands, trying to warm up her fingers. “Please work. Flame!”  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
Gritting her teeth, Louise tried not to cry. Crying wouldn’t solve anything. Even… even if Eleanore had stolen her power or… or something.  
  
“Flame! Fireball! Hellish Incineration! Dark Combustion! Malign Conflagration! Abyssal Firestorm! Wicked Firewhip!” In desperation, she reached for any spell, just trying to get any magic at all to work. She wasn’t even getting mis-fires like she should! Like she always used to. “Acid Wall! Lightning Bolt! Bl-”  
  
_Kracka-thuum_. Blindingly bright blue-white lightning lashed out faster than the eye could see and blew apart one of the surviving walls of the theology department. Rubble thundered down, kicking up a cloud of dust. Louise coughed, waving it away, and sagged, slumping against the unicorn. It wasn’t even the will she had put into the magic.  
  
That wasn’t her lightning. Her lightning was pink. That had been the bright blue-white of wind magic.  
  
The kind of wind magic that only a few mages a generation could perform and which took a square rank to perform. There were two wind mages she knew of who could conjure lightning from nothing, rather than calling it down from the clouds.  
  
Viscount Wardes was one. Her mother was the other.  
  
Had she swapped magic with Eleanore? But no. Eleanore wasn’t a wind mage. She did fire and earth magic. But Louise hadn’t been able to call upon the dark magic that… that she had thought was hers. And Eleanore had casually used some kind of evil spell to kill a minion in the vision the unicorn had shown her. So it wasn’t that she had Eleanore’s magic. Eleanore had her magic.  
  
“I’m… I’m a wind mage,” Louise whispered. “When I don’t have dark magic getting in the way, I’m a wind mage. And… and I’m a _really powerful_ wind mage.”  
  
The unicorn whickered approvingly.  
  
She combed out the unicorn’s mane with her fingers, barely able to contain her bittersweet glee. Of all the times to discover that… that whatever evil power she had had been suppressing her natural wind magic since she'd been born. She was her mother’s daughter! And all it had taken was being thoroughly beaten by her big sister, who probably had been corrupted by the same evil force that Louise had lived with her entire life.  
  
Really, ruining everything was what Eleanore did best. Why should now be an exception?  
  
“That’s not really fair,” Louise whispered to herself. “She… she was trying to save me. She’s just bad with people. Really bad with people.” She found she couldn’t hold a grudge. Not like she normally did, at least. Normally she knew her gut would be seething with hate and resentment and anger - the same powerful spite that had driven her to achieve everything she’d achieved.  
  
Now, she just felt a deep sorrow for her sister; a sadness that only fortified her determination.  
  
“Is there a limit to how long you can sustain me, unicorn?” Louise asked it. “I’m thinking there must be one, especially if I start using magic.” The unicorn nodded. “Well, in that case, I know where we need to go next. Take me to the Great Hall of the university. Um. If you know where that is. I could probably remember the directions if you need them, but… oh. Stop. We need to find the Madame de Montespan.”  
  
The unicorn made a noise that was to all intents and purposes a “Harumph”.  
  
“We do!” Louise insisted. “She might have been evil and stupid and… and I might have hated her, but I can’t leave her body out here to freeze to death out here in this cold. Even if by some measures she might deserve it.” She swallowed. “I’d be a hypocrite if I abandoned one relative to eternal damnation when trying to save another one. Magdalene said she was never quite sane after the Affair of the Poisons. I should pity her, not hate her. And…” she tried to still the shaking in her hands, “all things considered? It’s not _her_ fault Wardes took her as his mistress when he should have been mourning me.” Louise smiled weakly. “H-having to sleep with that treacherous dog is punishment enough.”  
  
Tilting its head, the unicorn nodded approvingly, and gave her another lick from chin to brow.  
  
“Could you _please_ stop doing that?”

* * *

‘Twas cruel midwinter, and a few minions searched through the snowy landscape.  
  
“I is frozen all the way up to the unmentionables,” Scyl grumbled, wading through a waist-high snow drift.  
  
“What is they?” Maxy asked.  
  
“Dunno. No one can mention them.”  
  
“Wait, look over there!” Maggat said, gesturing. “It are a wooden box what humies keep dead humies in.” He looked around, keeping an eye on Roger and Niner. “It are in a crater, so I is thinking it fell from the sky. So it are pro’bly the oversister.”  
  
“Why do you think humies put bodies in boxes?” Scyl wondered. “Maybe they is trying to keep track of them until they find a blue humie. I mean, humies are sort of brown-pink, so there has gotta be some green, blue and red humies out there.”  
  
Maxy shook his head confidently. “Nah. They no has got blues like you, Scyl. That are because we is the pen-an’-call of evil lotion.”  
  
“I wish Fettid were here,” Scyl said sadly. “She like her lotion a lot. Or maybe her knifeys. I always get them mixed up.”  
  
“Well, we gotta go dig her out from under that dead angel baby when we cook it,” Maggat said. “Now, how we be tricksy like a green and make them go to the box with the oversister in?”  
  
They thought, or at least did the closest equivalent that minions could achieve.  
  
“Oi, Roger, Niner,” Maxy yelled out. “There are a box over there.”  
  
The other two minions’ ears perked up at that.  
  
“Box?”  
  
“What’s in the box!?”  
  
Maggat grinned. “Ah well. Greens is overrated,” he muttered, as he readied his club.

* * *

At least the Great Hall was intact. Louise had been more than a little worried about its fate and whatever Baelogji might have done to it. But there were signs of a commotion, and some of the snow near the doorway was… well, she desperately hoped that someone had spilt red wine there. Desperately, desperately hoped.  
  
“Halt! Who goes there?” The voice which came from inside the vestibule of the Great Hall quavered somewhat. “Halt or we, um, set you on fire! And also unleash our golems on you. And… oh, oh, Elizabet has wind magic so she’ll do something too.”  
  
That sounded ineffectual. That was probably Magdalene’s cult – although, Louise hastened to mentally add, it was a good thing they were so awful at being bad.  
  
The unicorn stopped without Louise having to do a thing. Her claims to be the overlady had the small problem that she was missing the three most distinctive features, namely the helmet, the gauntlet, and the glowing eyes. Moreover, since Eleanore had stolen whatever evil power she’d had, she couldn’t just set a tree on fire with pink flames as proof. Not that she felt like doing that anyway. It was pointlessly cruel and more than a little insecure.  
  
“I am but a good-hearted traveller and wandering Hero, looking for respite from this storm,” she said. “Alas, I cannot give you my name, but my sword-name is…” sugar, sugar, sugar, she should have thought of this beforehand, “… Centuriona.”  
  
Even from this distance, she could hear the loud discussion vis a vis “Can we trust her?” and “What if it’s a trick?” and “But she’s on a unicorn. Everyone know they hate evil,” and “But aren’t we…” and “Shh, shh!”.  
  
“Lady Magdalene van Delft knows me and can vouch for me,” she said, to hurry things along. She knew firsthand how ineffectual the cult was without Magdalene to shout at them, and she was exhausting willpower she would need for magic just to keep going with the pain from her injuries. “Please! This is important!”  
  
“Well, I suppose…”  
  
The unicorn decided to spare Louise the difficulty of working out how to drag Françoise-Athenais behind her by simply walking into the Great Hall, where it was instantly surrounded by small children and women. Louise left it being bribed with sugar lumps and carrots – goodness only knew where they had got them from – and slipped down from its back.  
  
She then fell over in a dead faint as all her borrowed energy departed and left her running on nerves. And while nerves had many useful properties, their capacity to keep one going when one’s body was mostly bruises was sadly lacking.

* * *

Dark blood pooled on the wooden surface of the coffin, spilling out the life energy of Roger and Niner. It seeped into the wood, creeping down through the gaps in the planks to splash down below.  
  
Red eyes lit up.  
  
A pale hand burst through the surface of the coffin, turning it to matchwood.  
  
Cattleya de la Vallière rose from the grave, moving from prone to standing up in one movement as if there was a pivot attached to her heels. Pale skin was stretched taut over a face which seemed much less rounded and soft. She turned her head nearly one hundred and eighty degrees, to glare back at the minions with predatory eyes.  
  
And then she screwed her face up as if she had bitten into a lemon.  
  
“That tasted just _awful_ ,” she said, wincing. “Eww! Eww eww eww! What the heck was that sugar-flipping taste? Urgh, I need something to wash out my mouth.”  
  
“Uh, that was two minions, your oversisteryness,” Maggat said.  
  
“… you taste _that_ bad? Couldn’t you find… some animal or something?” Cattleya said, stepping down from the coffin. She fell to her knees, and started trying to scrub her mouth out with snow. “It doesn’t help! Nothing helps! I’m tasting this in my soul or something!”  
  
“Oversister, we got a real problem,” Maxy said, shuffling forwards.  
  
“Worse than the way you taste?!”  
  
“It are more of a problem than that,” Maxy said, to make himself clear.  
  
The minions explained, complete with hand-gestures and occasionally hitting each other when one tried to talk over the top of another.  
  
“I’m not surprised,” Cattleya said, in a tone nearly as dead as she was. “Well, perhaps I’m a little surprised that Louise let her do that, but I’m not surprised that Eleanore fell to the forces of darkness. And not the ones on the right side, like us.” Unblinking she considered the minions clinically. “Shouldn’t you be working for Eleanore now?”  
  
“Don’t wanna,” Maggat said succinctly.  
  
“Well, that’ll do for me!” Cattleya clicked her knuckles, then her neck. “We shall find Louise, then.”  
  
“Ah, yeah, so you got a plan to help the overl… oversi… her?” Maxy asked.  
  
“Oh, no,” Cattelya said, sounding mildly surprised. “I just don’t want her getting in the way. Revenge will be sweet.”  
  
Cattleya smiled, and now it wasn’t just her canines which were razor sharp.


	62. Realignment 12-2

_“Time. I hate time. Counting away the seconds of my life. Making irreversible things I wish had not been done. Never giving me long enough to do what I need to do. And clocks! They’re the eyes of the God of Time, you know! He watches us! Watches us all! The watches are how he watches us! No, I don’t need to take my potions! Yes, I know I’m meant to take them every three hours, but that’s just how Father Time tries to control me!”_  
  
–  Elias of North Wich

* * *

The forces of alleged darkness crept through the night. For once they were not minions, at least with regards to their species. They were instead Magdalene’s generally rather pathetic cultists.   
  
The difference was easy to tell. Not only were they taller, more female, and rather better-smelling, but also if they had been minions they wouldn’t have been having so many problems with their current task. Gathered around the glass fronting of a high-class alchemy shop just outside the university grounds, they were faced with a quite pressing conundrum.  
  
“Look, we just smash the glass with magic, grab the potions and run. On a count of three! One, two… what is it, Elizabet?”  
  
“Well, I’m not sure it’s necessarily right for us to break some alchemist’s window.”  
  
“We are a dark cult, though. I don’t believe we should be doing right things.”  
  
“That is true. But there’s a difference between being evil and being ill-mannered and I’m afraid that perhaps breaking the window might be the latter.”  
  
The issue was considered.  
  
“Perhaps we could try throwing snowballs at the upstairs windows and see if anyone is in who can open up? Then we can pay them for the potions,” Elizabet suggested brightly.  
  
“Why, that sounds like a jolly good idea!”  
  
Jacqueline strode up, candlestick propped on one shoulder. “What seems to be the matter here?” she asked.  
  
The others looked nervous. Jacqueline had refused to put down the ornament, and had indeed dipped it in holy water when they went and, ahem, ‘borrowed’ some relics from the church to ‘keep them safe’ on Magdalene’s grouchy instructions. None of them wanted to suffer Marie’s fate of being clubbed unconscious and tied up in a storeroom. “Well, we’re not sure if we really should be breaking people’s windows so we can steal their potions. It’s a bit uncouth.”  
  
“I see,” Jacqueline said, hefting the heavy silver candlestick and taking in the expensive glass window thoughtfully. “You know, I’ve always wanted to break one of these windows. You know, the feeling when you’re walking down the street and you say to yourself, ‘I wonder how it sounds’. Or is that just me?”  
  
“At the very least shouldn’t we be using magic on the lock or som-” Elizabet trailed off as Jacqueline stepped up to the window with the posture and attitude of a batter. “Well, I hope we leave an IOU.”  
  
“No, no,” Jacqueline said, a quiet smile on her face and her eyes alight with the fires of someone deeply regretting she hadn’t spent her later teenage years committing socially acceptable violence through the medium of wandering heroism. “No IOUs. Monsieur Candlestick says so!”

* * *

This time when Louise opened her eyes, there was a ceiling above her. In addition, she was lying on cushions. This made it approximately six hundred thousand times better than the last time she had woken up, which had been less than an hour ago and had involved snow.  
  
“I have to work harder at staying conscious,” Louise whispered. There was a funny alchemical taste in her mouth.  
  
“No, really?” Magdalene’s voice intruded on her reverie and Louise twisted her head to look at the cult priestess who looked rather irked at the world in general and Louise specifically. Perhaps the fact she was bandaged up had something to do with that. “Most people don’t have to vow that to myself.”  
  
“Are you hurt?” Louise asked softly, stomach churning with guilt. “Because I’ll never forgive myself if it happened because of me. I’m so, so sorry.”  
  
“Well, now you’ve gone and taken all the fun out of it. Yes, for your information, I was stabbed in the back by someone stupid enough to trust Baelogji’s promises,” Magdalene said, pouting. “But that dang pre-emptive apology has ruined everything. Oh, and I’m having a baby.”  
  
“I know,” Louise said warily.  
  
“I mean right now. This moment. It’s still in the early stages, but it hurts.”  
  
“Oh. Oh! Um… congratulations?” Louise tried.  
  
That didn’t seem to work. “Honestly, I’ve been stabbed before, but this is the first time giving birth. Right now it’s just painful – ah! – contractions, but from all reports it’s going to get worse,” Magdalene said morbidly. “If this is normal, I can see why some woman prefer to go around fighting orcs and demons rather than settling down and starting a family.”  
  
Louise propped herself up on her elbows, peeling back her… wait, this wasn’t her dress. Why was she wearing a white dress?  
  
“Your clothes were a complete mess when you stumbled in,” Magdalene contributed. “Dragging Françoise-Athenais with you. Who did not respond, I might note, even when Jacqueline hit her with her candlestick. I believe we have found an unexpected side of Jacqueline. I suspect she’s going to make that candlestick a family heirloom, and it’s certainly been a formative experience for her children.” She paused, staring at Louise. “Are you feeling well?” she asked.  
  
“Oh, very well indeed! I mean, yes, I am more than a little annoyed at Eleanore, but I am going to resolve that,” Louise said. “Thank the other ladies for me - they seem to have done an excellent job healing me.”  
  
Strangely, that didn’t seem to be the answer that Magdalene was looking for. Her stare turned into a dubious squint. “Are you _sure_?” she tried.  
  
Louise had no idea what she was looking for, but there wasn’t time to waste. “Where is Montespan?” she asked.  
  
Magdalene gestured over to the other side of the room. Françoise-Athenais had been dumped there, a prominent and vaguely candlestick-shaped bruise on her brow. “What the heck happened?”  
  
Louise considered. Louise explained. Then Louise clarified that no, she was not joking.

* * *

Three minions slouched through the pathways of the university behind a vampire, looking for someone who wasn’t their overlady. There was dissent in the ranks, mostly about the fact that they were short.  
  
“But I no see why you can no turn into a giant wolfie and carry us,” Scyl whined, chasing behind the others. “My legs is cold.”  
  
“I no are as annoying as Scyl, but I are pretty cold,” Maxy agreed. He looked around nervously. “Plus, snow are just water what are pretending to be solid but can melt any second and then wham! You is drowning.”  
  
Cattleya stalked ahead of them. Unlike the minions, she was not striding through the snow. Instead, she walked on top of it, leaving no footprints. “Because I’ll tear my dress if I turn into a giant wolf and I don’t trust you not to steal it if I take it off,” she said, not slowing down.  
  
“That are true,” Scyl conceded. “I no mind being a girl minion again. Fettid are enjoying it.”  
  
“Anyway, it’s not proper for me to be unclad before gentlemen like yourself,” she added. “Even if you are adorable, there are standards.”  
  
“Fair,” Maxy said. “I is a famed para moor. The ladies just go all gooey and oogly at the knees when I break out the poems what are romantic and all.”  
  
Maggat thumped him over the head with his club. “No poems!”  
  
“Oooh!” Cattleya said before Maxy could try to hit him back. “I think this is the theology building.” She looked at the ruined structure and the giant dead angel foetus lying in the rubble. “Was the theology building, rather. Hmm. I do rather wonder how an angel would taste? It’d either taste scrumptious and delicious, or agonisingly painful and burning.”  
  
“Well, there are a dead one there,” Scyl said, pointing.  
  
Cattleya wrinkled her nose. “Drink the blood from a corpse, getting only teeny-weeny bits of stagnant trapped life?” she asked haughtily. “No, thank you. I’m not some _ghoul_.” She glanced around. “Where did you say the other minions were? The ones who will remain loyal to Louise?”  
  
“Well, Char are a pancake in those stone slabs, and Fettid are under the giant dead baby angel,” Maggat said.  
  
“Well, I’ll have them out in a jiffy!” Cattleya said brightly.  
  
“Urgh,” Fettid said, once she had been dragged out and brought back to life. “I was dead for ages. Why you be so slow, Scyl? I oughta stab you for that!”  
  
Maggat caught her wrist. “No stabbing Scyl,” he ordered. “Everyone else are okay, but not Scyl. We only got one blue now.”  
  
Char screamed. “No! No no no!”  
  
“What are the problem?”  
  
“My musket! It are as flat as I was!”  
  
Maxy squeezed his shoulder sympathetically. “I write a sad poem about it,” he said.  
  
“It no help. Nothing help. At least until I loot a new one. So, why it take so long to bring me back?”  
  
“Me too!” Fettid interjected. “I already say that. Why it so slow? And where my hand marky what make me even betterer with knifeys gone?”  
  
“Well…” Maggat paused. “So the big oversister steal the gauntlet and now she the overlady and the overlady is now the little oversister.”  
  
“I’m still the oversister,” Cattleya said helpfully.  
  
“She are still the oversister,” Maggat confirmed. “So we are thinking that we is gonna go help the little oversister become the overlady again ‘cause we no want to work for the big oversister what are the overlady now. Also, because Coddy are sucking up to the big oversister and sod that. I no are taking orders from that pillock.”  
  
Char embraced Maggat. “Brother! Comrade!”  
  
“I no are your brother and I no know what a comrade is.”  
  
“You is thinking for yourself! We minions no need the hand of the boor-shwa-zee overlords! It are the sweat of our looting what make the overlords have lotsa money, and we take the scraps off their table!”  
  
“I hope you no are thinking of taking away that we is getting to eat the scraps,” Fettid growled.  
  
“When the Redvolution comes, we are not only gonna get the scraps, but we are gonna get to eat the table and the food what are on it! Down with the overlords! Minions no need their iron boot on us!”  
  
The other four stared at him. “Yes, we do,” Maggat said. “Minions what no have an overlord no go out and get new loot. We just get killed and we no get to go to fun places and loot them.”  
  
“Yeah,” Maxy said, slapping Char playfully on the back of the head. “Better to serve in hell than reign in heaven, that are what I always say.”  
  
“No you don’t,” Fettid objected, ignoring him. “You never say that before in your life.”  
  
“Well, I _could_ always say it.”  
  
“Anyways, the rain in heaven are probably holy water, and that burns when it get in your eyes,” Scyl said, nodding.  
  
“Don’t start,” Maggat growled. “Look, it are like this, Char. Now we is rebels. This are a once in a lifetime chance for you to actually overthrow an overlord. Once the little oversister are overlady again, you can be all super annoying about having done it. You’d like that, yeah?”  
  
Char nodded. “I guess that are betterer. We is gonna be the worstest worst coup d’minion! We is gonna need a banner and armbands and a revolutionary song…”  
  
“Ooh, I can help!” Maxy said, eyes lighting up.  
  
“First we find Louise,” Cattleya said, eyes narrowed. “And preferably something to drink.”

* * *

“Oh dear,” Magdalene said, looking like she was on the edge of losing it. “So, let me get this straight. Eleanore has stolen all your power, fallen to the darkness, and is marching off somewhere with the Gnarl advising her and the minions on her side. And she’s probably going all old school de la Vallière on us.”  
  
Wincing, Louise nodded.  
  
“… I do believe this calls for an outright ‘oh fuck’.”   
  
“Language!” Louise said, although she secretly agreed. “But I think I can stop her.”  
  
Magdalene hung her head. “You might not remember it, but she was basically like my twin sister for most of my life,” she said softly. “Non-identical, obviously. She was the self-confident one and I… wasn’t. It was only when we fell out that I had to get tough and I did that by asking myself what she’d do. Even if I wasn’t giving birth literally right now, I couldn’t beat her. She’s better than me at everything – even before you get into the fact that you two are from the main line, or that she’s now empowered by evil.”  
  
“You’re wrong there,” Louise said, eyes gleaming. “You get along with an entire cult and only one of them has stabbed you. She couldn’t do that. Everyone would try to stab her. Probably even without anyone tempting them to do it.”  
  
“… true, but I don’t think that’ll help.”  
  
“It might. And you know her, you’re clever, and,” Louise took a breath. “I feel so much better now. Better than I have in years. I think that evil power, the power of the overlady – it’s like a weight on your shoulders. I’ve lived like that my entire life. She’s going to be feeling unsettled and, well, the opposite of how I feel right now. We have a chance.”   
  
“Foolish optimism,” Magdalene said, but there was a hint of doubt in her voice and Louise seized on that.  
  
“You don’t think that. You’re just afraid that I’m right.”  
  
“I think that I’m an awful person to evaluate what happens when two people from the main line fight,” Magdalene snapped. “Especially when both of you have given me orders in the past. I want you both to win and that’s really messing with my head! I… I just hate… I hate…”  
  
Louise rose, forcing down her aches and pains, and knelt before Magdalene, taking both her hands in hers. “Shhh. Shhh.” She swallowed. “I’m sorry. I never asked for this, and you never asked for this either. I’m ordering you to ignore all other orders from any other main line de la Vallière, save for this one. Do you understand? I’m ordering you to think clearly and not let the curse influence you. It’s what I need most right now – a clear head from someone I trust.”  
  
Madgalene sucked in a breath. “Are… are you even allowed to do that?”  
  
“No one said I couldn’t. You’re compelled to do what I want and need, and what I need right now is you thinking clearly, because you know Eleanore.”  
  
The older woman laughed. “Well… maybe?” She took a deep breath, and seemed to take comfort from it, shedding some of her nervous tension. “I don’t know if it worked, but I appreciate the sentiment.”  
  
Louise sank back into a sitting position. “Eleanore knew something about what was going on,” Louise said slowly, hugging her knees. “She recognised the gauntlet. And the ruby on the back. How? You were her friend. How would she know what it was?”  
  
The older woman frowned. “There are… ah!” Magdalene drew several sharp short breaths, and glared up at her. “You were the one who talked me into going ahead with this pregnancy,” she growled, grabbing Louise’s wrist and holding tight. “I’m not feeling very happy with you right now.”  
  
“I’m sorry it hurts,” Louise said. “There, there. Breathe deeply. It’ll all be over in… uh, some time? I’m sorry, I’m eighteen. I don’t know how long labour lasts in humans. Cats and dogs, yes. Humans, no.”  
  
“So helpful,” Magdalene drawled, sounding more like her normal self. “But yes. Where was I? There are rumours and tales… nothing concrete, you understand? But all the most fearsome overlords with minion servants and such-like in history have had ties to the royal families of the Brimiric nations. And there was a book written in Old Romalian that we found back in our adventuring days. It claimed that one of Brimir’s children was driven mad by the Abyss and tried to kill his brother and sister. One last curse from the Dark Lord who Brimir slew.”  
  
“The first overlord,” Louise whispered.  
  
“Sorry?”  
  
“There are sources I have access to that… that would support that,” Louise said, absent-mindedly rubbing her left hand. It was so strange to not have the gauntlet sitting there. “There was the first overlord. The one who created the orcs, then made the minions as an improvement on orcs. Also, the one who first conquered the Abyss and enslaved demons and… honestly, was probably responsible for a good seven in ten things wrong with the world. The other three in ten being the fault of elves, of course.”  
  
Magdalene inhaled softly. “Well. Your ‘sources’ are… surprisingly accurate. That’s forbidden knowledge – but it does match the Old Romalian book. Someone tried to burn it rather than let us take it from them. So of course Eleanore risked her life to get it.”  
  
“Because it was a book,” Louise agreed, nodding. “So what was in it?”  
  
Magdalene spread her hands. “I don’t know everything. I caught griffinpox from Jean-Jacques’s dang familiar before I could finish it and spent the entire week in bed. And then Jean-Jacques refused to let me finish it. He said it was dangerous and heretical – and Eleanore agreed. I don’t think she knew I’d seen any of it.” She paused. “I don’t know what happened to the book after that.”  
  
Louise sucked in a breath, blowing out her cheeks. Well, well. “So he knows something – and so does Eleanore.” Something that had been pressing at the back of her mind since she woke up took the chance to remind her of it. She tried to stand up, and collapsed back down onto the cushions. “Dang it.”  
  
“You need to rest,” Magdalene said. “At least until the healing finishes its work. They force fed you the potions to get you back on your feet. It’s kind of sweet of them. I hardly had to shout at all. But it does take some time.”  
  
“I know,” Louise said clenching her teeth and trying to stand up again. “There is somewhere I need to be.”  
  
“Yes, yes, I know, defeat Eleanore and—”  
  
“No. Well, yes! But right now, there is somewhere _else_ I need to be.”  
  
“Some dark ritual site?”  
  
Louise shook her head. “An… important place, to relieve a great burden I bear.”  
  
Magdalene tilted her head. “What do you… ah. Is it because potions contain a lot of water?”  
  
Louise nodded and managed to stand on her third try, moving through sheer willpower and a certain note of desperation.  
  
“Out the door, second on the right. You can’t miss it.”

* * *

Snow crunched underfoot. And Gnarl simply would not be silent.  
  
“… but your wickedness, you really should accept the minions into your service. Not only is it traditional, but they can serve you as your utterly expendable underlings. Without minions, you would have to rely on inferior substitutes, like orcs! Have you ever smelt an orc changing room? It’s worse than a dragon’s latrine. And—”  
  
“Founder, do you ever shut up?” Eleanore snapped. “I don’t care about your wittering. And I am not giving up Ozymandias for someone who is so utterly disloyal that he’s willing to change sides at the drop of a – ha – gauntlet.”  
  
“Your malevolence! I am loyal to the office of the overlord and so…”  
  
“Which is to say,” Eleanore said, slotting each word into place, “you are not loyal to the overlord. Oh, I know my history. Do you know how many revolutions, how many traitors have used that as their justification? It’s not that they’re disloyal, oh no. It’s the current incumbent who’s letting down the office.” She clenched her fist, metal clanking. “I can’t _stand_ fair-weather friends.”  
  
Ozymandias chittered to her, sitting on her shoulder.  
  
Eleanore tilted her head to listen. “Ah ha. So they’ve locked the doors?”  
  
The golden tamarin nodded, and chattered a few short words.  
  
“I see. Yes, good idea.” Eleanore turned on her heel, confusing the minions who managed to trip over each other. No small number of fights resulted from that, but Eleanore paid that no attention.  
  
“Uh, overlady, where you going?” Coddy asked, skipping and jogging as he tried to keep up with his long-legged boss. “It probably are easier if you tell us.”  
  
Eleanore pinched the bridge of her nose with her left hand. These idiots might be useful as expendable things for just long enough. “The doors of the Grand Archive of the University of Amstrelredamme are twenty metres tall and made of enchanted steel. The magic keeps them locked and proof against all entry. They could take a battery of cannons or a square-class’s spell without a dent. It takes a team of ten men several minutes to open them in the morning.”  
  
“Ah. That are a puzzler. I guess we are gonna to send some of the greens to sneak through the—”  
  
“No. Why would I do something like that? There’s a back entrance for when they have to take a deliveries in the night,” Eleanore said, looking down her nose at the brown minion. “We’ll just go in through there.”  
  
“Your wickedness, so you want to take the treasures of the Grand Archive?” Gnarl’s floating image said, beaming. “Oh, most ingenious. I only wish your sister had that ambition. She was all ‘I must capture Princess Henrietta’ and ‘I must destroy the Regency Council’. But you’re looking for old, dark magics, aren’t you?”  
  
“You could say that,” Eleanore said. “But you shouldn’t. I’m really sick of your voice.”

* * *

“You look better. I suppose since you’re a small girl, the potions work their way through you faster – in more than one way,” Magdalene said when Louise let herself back in. Her posture was straighter and the bruises on her neck looked days old. “I don’t feel better, incidentally. The contractions are getting worse and on top of that I’m just plain exhausted. Being stabbed really takes it out of you. I know that from long experience.”  
  
“I’m so sorry,” Louise said, nodding as she lowered herself into a chair. Her brow was furrowed in pensive thought. “I wear all that plate armour to protect me from it, but even with padding underneath you wind up covered in bruises.” She pursed her lips. “Hmm.”  
  
The other woman said nothing.  
  
“Hmm,” she tried again. “Hmm hmm. Hmm.”  
  
Magdalene sighed, shuffling her chair along the floor to sit closer to Louise and the fire. “You look like you have –ah! Founder, this baby is not starting on good terms with me! – something on your mind,” she said.  
  
“I was… ahem, busy, and I got to thinking,” Louise said, running her hands through her still damp hair. Pursing her lips, she found a ribbon on the table next to her and started trying to tie her hair back into a ponytail. “About my life and… and everything…”  
  
“Yes, that is something people often think about when they are –significant pause – busy,” Magdalene agreed. “It’s just the mind wandering.”  
  
“Is it, though? I mean, I… I don’t normally feel like this. Maybe it’s the potions or whether it’s knowing that I’m actually a really powerful wind mage…”  
  
“You are?”  
  
“Oh yes, very much so. I can casually cast lightning spells,” Louise said, eyes sparkling as she glanced over at a nearby mirror and admired her tied back hair. It made her look much more heroic. “Well, it’s a bit of a strain, but I believe without the dark power of the overlady I’m an almost-untrained square-rank wind mage.”  
  
“Founder, you disgust me,” Magdalene said, shaking her head. “Some of us had to work for a very long time and kill a lot of goblins to hit triangle rank.”  
  
“Oh yes, I can see how that might seem unfair,” Louise said thoughtfully. She rubbed one of the fast-fading bruises on her left wrist. “I’ve never really had a chance to look at things from this angle. I was always the ‘Zero’ at school – someone worthless, with no talent. I’m sorry if it seemed like I was bragging.”  
  
Magdalene narrowed her eyes. “I wonder if any of the potions had a soporific effect?” she muttered to herself. “Or something that would release the inhibitions?”  
  
“I beg your pardon?”  
  
“Oh, nothing. Just thinking about the baby.”  
  
“Right. Well… I mean, my life. And… and how I’ve been so silly. In so many ways.” Slowly, she slumped down, holding her head in her hands. “I’ve been such a terrible fool with both Henrietta and Emperor Lee. How could they tolerate me? I’ve been so abrasive and… and just utterly dreadful, always dancing around my feelings because I couldn’t accept them.” She laughed, shoulders hunched over. “The only one I was making miserable there was myself.”  
  
Magdalene glared at her, sweaty hair falling in front of her face. “What the heck are you blathering on about?” she demanded. “And wait, what? You have feelings towards the crown princess?”  
  
“As soon as I get back, I’ll need to sit down Henrietta and have a face to face conversation with her like mature adults,” Louise said to the thin air, crossing her arms. “I… I don’t know if she can accept how I feel about her, but she should know the truth. We’ll see how things go from there.” She blushed pinkly. “M-maybe the feeling that there’s someone else out there who deeply cares for her might help her get over the loss of her beloved. Oh, but am I being selfish? Shouldn’t I respect her right to mourn for him? But on the other hand, surely that much grief is self-destructive, and she needs something else to live for. I’ve been neglecting her terribly so because I’ve been dealing with these feelings, and perhaps that’s why she’s dabbling in darker magics. Oh, it’s all so complicated.”  
  
Blinking, Magdalene tilted her head. “I think I’ve lost too much blood,” she said woozily. “Or maybe this is some side effect of giving birth. Some kind of magical aura of motherhood. People don’t confide in me.”  
  
“After that… well, it depends,” Louise continued. “Maybe she can’t accept another woman’s feelings, in which case I’ll just have to accept it and I do so hope we can remain friends.” She hugged herself. “You know, I now wonder why I even made such a fuss about liking both men and women. Well, one woman. And Jessica I suppose, but that’s the incubus thing so that’s not really my fault. I suppose if Henrietta doesn’t feel that way about me - and that’s fine, it’s not her fault - well, that just means I should devote my time to pursuing Emperor Lee.”  
  
“The Dark Dragon Emperor of Cathay?” Magdalene asked, bewildered. “Wait, why am I even encouraging you? I don’t want you to be open about your feelings, least of all if I have to listen to…”  
  
“Oh yes!” Louise said, ignoring the attempt at objections. “He is quite handsome, and we get along well. I think he has feelings for me. If so, that’s just wonderful! I truly believe in the power of love to redeem him! It might be the work of a few years, but my love might be able to make him the _Light_ Dragon Emperor!”  
  
Magdalene groaned as another wave of contractions hit. “... it doesn’t work that way. It really doesn’t work that way,” she managed once they had passed. “You can’t turn a bad boy good just by offering him your love. And your body.”  
  
“No, you can,” Louise disagreed. “It’s well-attested historically. Lots of figures of great evil have been saved by the power of love.” She blushed. “And… um, possibly the power of bodies. I might need to research that one further.”  
  
“Okay, yes, true, you can. However, all the stories which talk about the healing power of love and the redemption a good woman can bring to a brooding damaged possibly grey-haired man who’s so handsome and a really good friend even if he has a darker side,” Magdalene paused for breath, “well, they don’t mention all the times it doesn’t work out. The stories would be a lot less romantic if the dark lord just ignored the heroine or worse had her decapitated or even worse picked her best friend over her. And the times it works, it tends to be on people who aren’t the dark emperor of the Mystic East.”  
  
Louise blinked. Some of what her friend and spymistress was saying had registered in the funny state of mind she was in. “Wait, are you talking from personal experience there?”  
  
“Me? Of course not. Why would you think that? It’s nonsense. I’m not talking from personal experience.” Magdalene paused. “Do I look like I’ve had my head cut off?”  
  
Louise had to agree that she did not.  
  
“And continuing to not speak from personal experience,” she added, “in my not-personal experience, love triangles don’t work out. And,” she glanced over at Françoise-Athenais with a hint of deep sorrow in her eyes, “never listen to people who suggest that maybe the three of you can share. It just gets really, really awkward and you’re all drunk and then no one knows quite what to do with their hands and the bed isn’t big enough and then…”  
  
Tilting her head, Louise frowned. “I don’t follow. What are you talking about?”  
  
“… don’t you have an Eleanore to beat?” Magdalene asked, rather red in the face.   
  
“Oh, right! How self-centred of me, to pour out my heart to you when there’s a world to save!” She grabbed her – well, Eleanore’s – wand off the table. “I need to track down Eleanore. And save her. Or stop her. Actually, I need to stop her, and then preferably save her.”  
  
“Yes. That’s probably the best way.”  
  
Louise made her way over, and gave Magdalene a hug. “Oh, thank you so much for helping me resolve this! You’re a wonderful listener!”  
  
“... you’re welcome? Also please, not so tight, I was stabbed!”  
  
“I mean it!” Louise shifted her arms. “You’ve been a really good friend and, yes, I am proud to call you one! And once this is all over, I’ll make it up to you! On my honour!”  
  
And with that said, Louise swept out, her white dress flapping around her.  
  
“Remember to dress up warm!” Magdalene called. “Ask someone for a warm robe! You don’t want to catch a cold.” She paused, and blinked. “Founder, am I getting maternal?” she growled. “Well, it’s not my fault. Stupid babies messing with my body. And… she does sound just like Aunt Karina,” she added, before another contraction hit. “Jacqueline! Get in here! Get this darn baby out of me! I cannot go through hours more of this, I swear! There’s not even a sign of the darn head yet!”  
  
“Now, now, it’ll be done when it’s done,” Jacqueline said, bustling through.  
  
“But I want it to be done now! Can’t you just slice me open and get it over and done with? I’ve already been stabbed once today!”  
  
“Oh Mag, you’re so funny! I brought you a potion to take the edge of the pain, and mixed it with tea. It’s hot though, so don’t burn your mouth.” She carefully placed the tray next to Magdalene. “So the overlady is Eleanore’s little sister, hmm?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Uh uh uh, don’t lie, or I won’t give you the tea.”   
  
“Well, uh... maybe? But hypothetically if it was true, you couldn’t tell anyone!” Magdalene said quickly, protectively grabbing the tea. “Ow!”  
  
Jacqueline tutted. “I said it was hot. And, well, good for her. She’s a nice girl for a black tyrant of darkness. If we’re going to be allied with someone plotting dominion over Tristain, I’d rather someone who attends our book club meetings and remembers to bring a bottle of wine or four. I think it’s her turn to host one. It’ll be nice to see a proper tower of doom.”  
  
From next door came a cry of “Um! Excuse me! Has anyone seen my unicorn?” Louise stuck her head back in. “Have you?”  
  
Jacqueline sucked a breath in between her teeth. “Oh! Oh! Um, yes. The unicorn just walked away a few minutes ago. Were we meant to stop it from leaving?”  
  
But Louise had already dashed away.

* * *

There was no one at the back entrance, and the door had already been torn open. Alarm spells wailed out, unanswered. Eleanore picked her way, through carefully, black lightning sparking over her armoured fingers.  
  
The high halls of the Grand Archives were lined with books. The entire building smelt of paper, leather and a hint of candlewax. And under all of that, something hauntingly meaty and organic.  
  
From the crawling horrors creeping over the floor and hanging from the ceiling, Baelogji had made sure that her loyalists were in charge of this place. Now that they had received their ultimate reward, they were rather less concerned with categorisation and more concerned with copulation and cannibalism.  
  
Eleanore looked over the scene of twisted flesh and once-humanity, and her nose wrinkled in contempt. “Kill them all,” she ordered.  
  
The minions complied gleefully. Yelling warcries they charged forwards. Greens clambered up the walls to repeatedly stab human-headed spiders, while reds burned beaked mammals and browns clobbered the rest.  
  
“Excellent intonation, and a perfect attitude,” Gnarl said, nodding in approval. “Your maliciousness, already you are—”  
  
“Shut up. I’m thinking,” Eleanore said curtly. Her eyes momentarily flickered to a bookcase that was ablaze and she seemed about to intervene, but she shook her head sadly and looked away. Instead, she added her own spells to clearing a path through the corridors, and made her way to a great locked door barred which was barred and chained. Stone golems grated to life, pointing their spears at her.  
  
A pair of minions charged in, weapons at the ready, and promptly got pounded into very, very flat pancakes. The lefthand golem had a challenging note in its earthstone eyes as it slowly ground the red pulp into the ground with its foot.  
  
Eleanore sighed. “Golems are so shoddy as sentinels,” she said critically. “They can’t even approach me unless I try to get in.” She gestured at the door, and barked a single word. It dissolved into dust, along with the golems and half a minion who had been in the way. Eleanore stepped over the oozing body and headed down. “You are not to follow me,” she instructed the other minions, her eyes hollow. “Your orders are to stop anyone from following me. No matter what, let no one past.”  
  
Coddy nodded. That was more like it! A clear order from the overlady. “Yes, boss! We are certainly gonna do that.”  
  
She paused at the threshold, seemingly torn. “Also… don’t set any more of the books on fire. Kill anyone who does.”  
  
That produced a muttering from the reds, but the other minions were entirely fine with explicit orders to kill reds if they felt like it. And with that said, Eleanore headed down into the depths, accompanied only by her familiar and the glowing floating form of Gnarl. Several more spells marked her passage as she disarmed trap after trap through application of evil magic.  
  
“Oh, your wickedness, you clearly know your way around down here,” Gnarl said. “It is always so devilishly amusing when the stupid forces of Goodness give one access to their secrets. And this is the Grand Archive! So many dark magics, sealed away down here that cannot be destroyed – or which were kept because to destroy them would be too hard. And light magics, of course, sealed away for exactly the same reasons. Ownership of the Grand Archives tends to swap fairly frequently, as I recall.”  
  
Eleanore ignored him, simply continuing her way down the ill-lit stairs full of enchanted statues, tripwires, spring-loaded razors and other products of inventive minds from both sides of the moral spectrum. Ozymandias was of great help here, being light enough to avoid setting off pressure traps. His nimble fingers helped undo tripwires and defuse magical traps.  
  
At the bottom of the staircase lay a well-lit door, a great slab nearly identical to the front entrance upstairs. Before it was located three levers – one of gold, one of silver and one of iron. On the floor before it was a brass plaque, and on that was written a message.  
  
“Ah, quite the interesting conundrum, your darkness,” Gnarl said, squinting down at the plaque. “It appears to be a rather obtuse riddle. Let me see:  
  
“One, and only one of these levers will open the door.  
The others will kill you in a number of very inventive ways.  
One is shining gold, wise and far-seeing, with noble power.  
One is bright silver, mystic and hidden, possessed of hidden knowledge.  
One is humble iron, without pretence, only worthy of a peasant.  
The answer here will depend on who you are.  
Which one will you pull?”  
  
Gnarl’s floating image sat back. “Quite the interesting question. Which did the designers of this puzzle value more? Royalty, knowledge or humility? A disgustingly heroic question of self-definition and what you value, I see? It always makes me sick to my toes to come across these kinds of things. The answer is never ‘power’. Urgh!”  
  
“There’s no need to read it out loud,” Eleanore said, sniffing. “It won’t do you any good.”  
  
“Ah?”  
  
“The message is a lie.” Eleanore stepped up to the gold and silver lever, while Ozymandias leapt off her shoulder to cling onto the iron one. “Ready? On three.”  
  
Ozymandias nodded.  
  
“One. Two. Three.” She pulled two of the levers, while her familiar hung from the third, letting his weight pull it down. The mechanisms clunked, and the door edged open slowly. “Now we just have to wait for it to open enough to squeeze through,” she said wearily.  
  
“Ah, your darkness. So the heroes who designed this thing felt that all three were needed and trying for one is a sign of moral failing. How droll.”  
  
“If you like,” Eleanore said. “Personally, I just think they felt they were clever. It’s the sort of thing I’d do, giving false messages.”  
  
“Now, what are you looking for down here, your maliciousness?” Gnarl wondered. “There are so many dark treasures hidden here. The Helm of Scull?”  
  
Eleanore snorted. “Hardly. I don’t want to be possessed by an ancient necromancer.”  
  
“The Last Spell of Obteneratus III?”  
  
“There is literally no point in eating the sun.”  
  
“The Hand of the Bloody Duke?”  
  
“A fake. He had both when I met him.”  
  
“Hmm.” Gnarl tilted his head. “The Great Working of Elias the Chronophage?”  
  
Eleanore stiffened up. “You know of him?”  
  
“Oh, of course.” Gnarl shook his head. “A very strange man, and a very unreliable subordinate for my overlord at the time. Couldn’t bring himself to attack any town with a clocktower in it. But your wickedness, I don’t think that is a sound idea. You should know…”  
  
“I don’t care what you think I should know,” Eleanore said, staring through Ozymandias’ eyes at the opening door. “I know what I’m doing. And I’m getting rather sick of your attitude. For all your alleged skill as an advisor, when we look at the history of people you’ve advised your main talent appears to be abandoning them soon enough to avoid being killed yourself.”  
  
“Ah ha, quite the little scholar you are, aren’t you?”  
  
“You might say that.” The gauntlet whispered to her, and Eleanore cocked her head. “Of course,” she said softly. “I don’t know why I didn’t do that before. I was such a fool.”  
  
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that, your wi—”  
  
Eleanore tapped the gauntlet, and Gnarl’s image vanished.  
  
“Much better,” Eleanore said, self-satisfaction clear in her voice.   
  
Ozymandias patted her on the hand, and made an enquiring noise.  
  
“Just a little bit longer,” she said, rubbing her glowing eyes. “Just a little bit longer, and we can fix the world.”

* * *

Louise was faced with a conundrum. Her unicorn had galloped off somewhere. She had followed the hoof prints. This had been easy at first, but the falling snow was covering them. And now they had just suddenly stopped entirely, as if an invisible line had been drawn in the snow and beyond there the unicorn had started flying or something.  
  
She paused in her chain of thought, tilting her head. Maybe it had. After all, some unicorns could fly.  
  
“Uh! Hello? Monsieur Unicorn? Where have you gone?” she called out tentatively. Something rustled through the undergrowth, and she whirled, wand raised. But it was only a white hare. “Oh, hello,” she said, scrutinising it for familiar marks and finding none. “You wouldn’t have happened to have seen a unicorn anywhere?”  
  
The hare ignored her and busied itself with trying to dig through the snow drift.  
  
“Oh dear,” Louise said, rummaging in her pockets. She tossed a scrap of the bread that Lady Jacqueline had forced on her to it. “You should probably get out of here. Things might explode around me. They usually do. Or—”  
  
“Well, I no see why the means of looting should not be owned by the pro-lee-tar-a-rat.”  
  
“You so stupid! Who give looting things to a rat?”  
  
“Well, I would jolly well hope you give things to rats! I have some of them, and they’re just so adorable!”  
  
“… the minions might show up,” Louise said sadly. The hare was running off, as most things with a nose did when minions approached. And what the heck was Cattleya doing here? She straightened up, hand on her wand, and headed towards the voices.  
  
What she found was five minions riding a giant wolf with blood red eyes, sharp fangs, and a dress in its mouth.  
  
“Um,” said Louise.  
  
“Oh! Little sister! You look well!” said the wolf, her voice slightly muffled. She spat out the dress, and growled at Fettid when the green lunged for it. “Sorry! But I was just feeling so bad about their little legs getting cold and they were slowing us down too much when we were looking for you so I had to carry them!”  
  
“Cattleya, what are you doing here?”  
  
“Oh! Well, it was certain death to go through the portal, but since I’m already dead…”  
  
“I see.” Louise stuffed her wand back in her pocket, and huffed on her hands. “You haven’t seen a unicorn around here, have you?”  
  
“No, more’s the pity! I could do with a snack!”  
  
“No snacking,” Louise responded automatically. “Do you know what’s happened here?”  
  
“Eleanore stole your gauntlet, Eleanore is now the overlady, that’s bad for everyone and probably especially you since she’s the worst big sister ever and can’t be trusted,” Cattleya said without pausing for breath.  
  
“… yes. So you do.”  
  
“We told her!” Maggat said brightly from atop Cattleya. He slithered down off her back, joined by the other minions. “See, we no are meant to be doing this,” he said a trifle awkwardly, “but we no like the new overlady. We are wanting you back.”  
  
“Oh my,” said Louise. “Eleanore managed to make _minions_ disloyal.” She shook her head, feeling rather sorry for her big sister. Louise had tried to drive off minions through sarcasm, mockery, insults, threats of death and occasionally repeated kicks with a metal boot. Only the last worked, and only then for a short time. That her sister had managed it on her first meeting was… well, impressive in its own way.  
  
“Uh… I know we’re after Eleanore, but all I can smell is minion right now and since I’m a wolf, I am suffering quite a bit,” Cattleya said. “Louise, can you look after my dress and stop any of the little dears from stealing it? I just need to jump in that ornamental pond over there.”  
  
“Won’t it be… cold?”  
  
“Oh no, I might die of cold. But I still have to do it.”  
  
Louise frowned, holding the dress, as the wolf hopped over a snow drift and there was the sound of breaking ice. Had that been sarcasm from Cattleya? Was she ill? Or had she just forgotten that she couldn’t die of cold?  
  
Speaking of dying of cold, she really hoped Cattleya would be fast. The cult had given her a nice warm white robe over the dress, but her feet were chilly.  
  
Louise’s earrings crackled with the screams of the damned. “Jessica?” she asked hopefully, waving at the others to stop.  
  
“Not quite,” Gnarl said. His voice was distant, but still clear. “So you were defeated, your ex-wickedness? And yet you’re alive. Very shameful. Tch. To think that the overlady didn’t even kill you. Poor form. Very poor form. Never leave a rival behind you to plot revenge.”  
  
“Wait a moment,” Louise said suspiciously. She raised one hand defensively, looking around for an ambush. “Jessica can’t reach me. You - that is, Gnarl - is in the Abyss too. This has to be one of Eleanore’s tricks!”  
  
Maxy gestured wildly at Louise. “Tell him that we no are here,” he mouthed, to furious nods from Scyl. Louise put a finger to her lips, ordering them to stay silent.  
  
“Can you please throw me my dress?” Cattleya called over. Louise balled it up and tossed it her way.  
  
“I’m not a fake. Not one bit, your former malevolence. Your pet incubus might have her tricks, but she’s just a child. And I don’t tell everyone everything I can do,” Gnarl said, sounding very hurt. “To think of such a thing! I always hold a few things back for myself.”  
  
That did sound like a Gnarl-like thing to do, Louise admitted. “Well, what do you want?” she asked, trying to stay sounding polite since there were such things as manners. “I doubt you’re just contacting me to gloat because I was beaten and… wait, actually, I think that’s quite possible. Are you just gloating?”  
  
“Not one bit, my has-been overlady.” There was the sound of knuckles popping. “I just thought you might like to know where the overlady - that is, your eldest sister – is. And what she’s up to.”  
  
“And why are you helping me?” Louise asked suspiciously. “What kind of evil ploy is it? I doubt it’s because you like me.”  
  
“Quite so, quite so.” She heard an exhalation of smoke - and suspected Gnarl had a cigar in his mouth. “From my point of view, the fact that she left you alive without locking you up in a dungeon to torture and without even crushing your sense of self or otherwise magically enslaving you raises certain doubts as to her… capacity to maintain her position.”  
  
Louise swallowed. Um.  
  
“So I thought I’d help the overlady by making sure her most prominent rival to the position attacked her again. If she defeats you - which I will support her in doing - then, why, she’s solidified her position. But if you defeat her again and take back your gauntlet and your fraction of the mantle of darkness - well, of course, I would be most willing to become your chief advisor again.”  
  
“I see,” she said. Louise was more than a little insulted at the thought that she’d want to… to take back that cursed power from Eleanore. She felt so much better like this! And she was the daughter mother had always wanted, the wind mage who could learn from her and wasn’t a vampire or an Eleanore! She didn’t have to skulk around in shadows anymore! She’d be able to make things work out without the power of the overlady, anyway. Just wait until she told mother and father about what the Council had been doing!  
  
“What’s going on?” Cattleya whispered, sticking her head over the snow drift. There was ice in her hair, which seemed to be freezing solid. She didn’t look well at all. She looked monstrous.  
  
“Gnarl is being Gnarl,” Louise said, cupping her hands around her mouth in the hope that it would stop the earrings from hearing her. “What happened to you!?”  
  
“You know how it was certain death to go through the portal? Well, I died. But then I came back. It’s going to take a teeny while to get over some of the side effects. What is he saying?”  
  
“He’s offering to tell us where Eleanore has gone, so we’ll fight.”  
  
“Oooh!” Louise shushed her. “I mean, oh. Well, I want to know that. I really want to punch her in the face. Oh, and stop her falling to evil, I suppose.” Cattleya beamed. “Don’t deny me this chance,” she said sweetly.  
  
Louise directed a long hard look at her sister. The resurrection had left her looking more corpse-like, with her flesh ashen-pale and her skin drawn a little too tight over her bones. There was a hint of fang poking out all the time, even when her blood-red lips were closed, and it was hard to tell if she was wearing eyeliner or just had bags under her eyes. She did not look very huggable or safe.  
  
“Where is she?” she asked Gnarl, trying to ignore the sinking feeling that she was making a mistake.  
  
“Why, the overlady has gone to the Grand Archives of the University, looking for forbidden lore, your diminutiveness. She has taken all her loyal minions with her – wouldn’t you just know, some of them have gone missing! – and she is refusing to listen to my advice. Such a shame. Ha! Such a foolish girl! She’s clearly let the power go to her head. There’s no way she could cast the Great Working of Elias the Chronophage!”  
  
Louise relaxed. “Oh, that’s good?” She paused. “Why not? Eleanore is very clever.”  
  
“It’s not a matter of intellect. She isn’t strong enough! Not even an overlord can manage it… well, maybe the First could have, but no one since. And she doesn’t have a pact with a demon lord or a dark god, which is the only way to get the kind of raw Evil you’d need to fuel it. She’ll just drain herself to death trying! I suppose that’s one way to get your hands on the gauntlet again with no effort.”  
  
There was a painful silence.  
  
“Wait a moment. What was that?” Louise asked, paling. “About the power of a dark god being enough to fuel that spell? Is that what you really just said?”  
  
“Oh, indeed. So there’s no need to worry about that.”  
  
Goodness, what was that feeling pressing on her chest? What was that broiling, writhing, squirming sensation that made it hard to breathe and made her want to run away and hide?  
  
Oh yes. Existential terror. That would be it.  
  
“She has the power of a dark god,” Louise whispered.  
  
“What?” For the first time, Gnarl seemed disconcerted.  
  
“Athe and Baelogji are trapped in a magic crystal! And she has it! She has the power!” Louise tried to resist the urge to bite her nails, and failed. “How much time can this magic destroy? Please only let it be minutes! I’ll even settle for hours.”  
  
Gnarl cleared his throat. “Well, last time it was used, it was… well, it’s quite hard to say. Didn’t you ever wonder why history is so confused and there’s an endless succession of monarchs with very short reigns? Of course, old Elias didn’t even cast the spell right. The way that a hero stabbed him through the forehead when he was mid-way through may have had something to do with that. Wretched heroes, always meddling with a man’s attempt to destroy periods of time.”  
  
“You’re not helping, Gnarl!”  
  
“Correct, your former-wickedness, I am not. But… decades, at least. The entire reign of King Julius the Benevolent never happened.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Precisely.” Gnarl seemed to come to a decision. “Your ex-darkness, you have to stop her! It pains me to act against the current overlady, but you know what? If she destroys more than the past few years and that means I don’t meet you, I’ll wind up back in that damn cage again! Having to listen to that really annoying vampire with his obsession about melodramatic pauses! Oh, it’s more than my old heart can bear!”  
  
It wasn’t exactly the purest motive that anyone had ever had for helping someone stop a force of great Evil, but Louise was willing to bet that there had been less pure reasons.  



	63. Realignment 12-3

_“Do not prize the greater good. Treasure the little goods, the tiny embers in even the blackest heart. And nurture those embers. Even the smallest flame can light a beacon. Evil might say that this is trite and inane, but such words are merely bluster from those scared of the soft glow of hope.”_  
  
–  Dei

* * *

The Grand Archives of the university stretched upwards against the black sky. The structure, rebuilt just a few years ago in the latest baroque style with increased fortifications, appeared untouched. Louise took in the unsmashed golems, the not-set-on-fire sentinels and the still-animate suits of armour just waiting to spring into action, and winced.  
  
It appeared that Eleanore knew rather more evil magic than she did. She’d somehow got in without setting off any of the guardians. What terrible power! Obviously ten years of academia had taught her _something_.  
  
“Cattleya?” Louise asked. “Do you have any ideas on how to get in?”  
  
Cattleya frowned. “Well, I could turn into a giant bat and carry everyone up onto the roof. There might be a door up there.”  
  
“Hmm.” Louise considered her alternatives. It certainly seemed better than going in through the killing field of the front. And she didn’t want to hope that they’d been silly and left the back unguarded. There’d probably be all sorts of traps back there. No, she’d definitely prefer to come in through an unexpected entrance. “Good idea.”  
  
“Right-o!” Cattleya said, already unbuttoning her dress. “One monstrous bat shape, coming right up!”  
  
Louise grinned. “Oh, I don’t need you to carry me.” She flicked her wand. “Levitate!” Gently, her feet lifted off the ground. “It’s rather wonderful, don’t you think?”  
  
Cattleya froze up, fanged mouth wide open. “I… excuse me?”  
  
“Oh, did I forget to mention? Without the cursed evil power afflicting me, I’m a terribly strong wind mage.”  
  
“Then why you no fly when you is normal?” Scyl asked reasonably.  
  
“It… it doesn’t work. When I tried the levitation spell, it nearly blew up in my hand. By which I mean, it nearly blew up my hand.” Louise drifted upwards. “I’ll see you up there!”  
  
Cattleya blinked. “Wait, no, wait for a moment!” She scowled, her features taking on a monstrous cast and turning grey-black as she shed her clothes. “She needed to carry my dress! Fettid! No stealing it!”  
  
Drifting upwards, Louise landed elegantly on the lead-coated rooftop, and resisted the urge to dance for joy. It was so good to be good! And-  
  
Stone crunched behind her. Louise turned, and then swallowed. The gargoyle on the clock tower was peeling itself away from the brickwork. With a noise like a landslide, it clattered down onto the lead roof, bending the metal under its weight. It had to be three times her height, and many times broader. Ornamental copper armour shed flakes of verdigris as the gargoyle flexed its muscles, hefting a poleaxe big enough to decapitate a dragon.  
  
Throwing its head back, it moved as if to roar but made no noise.  
  
“Lightning Bolt!”  
  
Thunder boomed, and the gargoyle’s left leg shattered. Arms pinwheeling, the stone statue lost its balance and fell over sideways. The roof gave way under its bulk and it collapsed through the building, shattering with the noise of a thousand dropped teapots.  
  
Smugly, Louise watched it fall. The end of her borrowed wand smoked in the cold air. With a slow exhalation, she blew the smoke away. And then she started coughing.  
  
Founder, that had been nearly perfect! That’d been when she’d dreamed of doing her whole life! Not the coughing, but everything else! Mother probably wouldn’t accidentally inhaled some of the smoke, but that just meant she had room to improve.  
  
“Did you see that?” she demanded of the giant-bat-shaped Cattleya and the minions as they settled down on the roof  
  
“See what?” asked the bat, speaking too loudly. “What was that far too loud noise? I’m a bat! I have very sensitive ears!”  
  
“I was so incredible! A giant gargoyle attacked me and I blew off its leg and then it fell over and that’s why there’s a hole in the roof!”  
  
Louise couldn’t help but feel that the bat was eyeing her suspiciously. “Well, I’m sure you did _really well_ ,” Cattleya said.  
  
“You don’t believe me.”  
  
“No, no, of course I do. I’m sure you killed a gargoyle, even though you were really scared. I just think it was probably helped by how weak the roof was. Giant stone statues shouldn’t be standing on lead roofs.”  
  
“I wasn’t scared! And it was ten metres high!”  
  
Cattleya fluttered down, her shape twisting to become more of a hideous hybrid of man and bat. “I’m sure it felt that way,” she said, sounding very reasonable for a monster with a mouth full of finger-length fangs.  
  
“I think the little oversister are not very bad at judging the size of things what are much taller than her. And that are a lot of things,” said a minion who was trying to be a voice in the crowd, but who Louise knew to be Scyl. It was hard for five minions to be a crowd.  
  
Louise pouted, and sighed. “Well, thanks to the _giant gargoyle I killed in one spell_ ,” she said, “there’s a giant hole in the roof. Caused by the giant gargoyle. So that gives us a way in. Now, Eleanore and the other minions will be down there. However, fortunately I have a plan. I’ll just need one of the minions to go down in disguise, to infiltrate their ranks and subvert them from within and…”  
  
“Count on me, comrade!” Char said, puffing up his chest. From within a stinking inner pocket, he pulled out a pair of spectacles, half a turnip, and a moustache. Louise wondered who that had originally belonged to. “I is a master of dis-guys, you know! I has a whole new personality I use when I is being a redvolutionary.” He put on the glasses, the moustache, and stuck the turnip on his nose. “I no are Char Marks! I are now Grouchy!”  
  
Louise stared. “What kind of an idiot would fall for—”  
  
“Hey, where did Char go?” Fettid asked. “Oh, hey, that are Grouchy. Where he come from? I no think any other minions stay loyal.”  
  
“… minions. Yes. Right.” Louise massaged her temples. “For once, I am glad that the overlady is surrounded by idiots. Very well. So, while Char…”  
  
“Where Char?”  
  
“Shut up. While… _Grouchy_ works his way into their ranks, me and Cattleya will approach around the back and…” Louise paused. There was a certain lack of vampire in the surrounding area. “Catt?”  
  
“Oh yeah, she turn into a mist and floaty float away,” Scyl said helpfully. “Down through the hole what are in the roof.”  
  
“Catt! Get back here right now!” But Cattleya didn’t return. And Louise had a fairly certain idea of where her big sister was headed.  
  
“Oh, sugar,” she groaned.

* * *

One of the horrifically mutated servants of Baelogji had escaped the minions and had retreated upstairs to lick her wounds and regain her strength. She felt very faint – and had done so ever since her neck had grown to such an extent that she was twice her previous height. She wasn’t sure why she needed such a long neck, but surely there was a purpose to the actions of her goddess.  
  
Something moved, far below her eye level. Could it be one of those damnable minions? But no, it was something else entirely. A creeping mist roiled and boiled its way along the higher levels of the Grand Archives. Where it went, silver tarnished and shadows thickened.  
  
She flinched and tried to run. All this managed was slam her head into a chandelier, and she collapsed to her hands and knees. This somehow felt much more right, and her hands and feet suddenly seemed to realise that this gave her a more stable platform and started fusing together.  
  
“I’m awfully sorry,” the mist asked her, “but given you’re a freakish twisted cultist, do you know what you have for blood? Oh wait, never mind, you have open wounds and it looks delicious and red, and not at all like that awfully nasty copper-ish blue-green blood that the last one of you had. Jolly sorry for bothering you!”  
  
And then the mist was upon her, welling up to surround her entirely, and there only time to scream once, in a voice that was nearly a bray. Then there was silence.  
  
The desiccated corpse of something which looked like a sick fusion of human and a ridiculously long-necked deer hit the ground. Their shrivelled grey skin was covered in countless tiny puncture marks. And the mist moved on, now accompanied by a faint shushing noise. In its wake, it dragged the black robe the twisted cultist had been wearing.  
  
“Oi. Snot? Do you hear something?” asked Leg, ears perking up.  
  
Snot and Leg were two of the minions who Coddy had ordered to form an ‘outer perry-metre at the tacty-cool ten-four double’. Since they didn’t know how to do that, they were just guarding the place instead. “Hear what? The scream?”  
  
“Nah, that are just a cultist being killed. It are sort of a rustle rustle rustle noise.”  
  
“They must be a rustler? They is here to steal the overlady’s stuff!”  
  
“Could be, could be.” Leg put his hands behind his head. “I reckon that it are prob’ably another one of them cultists. Ain’t that right, mysterious and creepifying mist?”  
  
The mist that had snuck up on them giggled. “That’s awfully funny! I am _mist_ erious. Because I’m a mist! But more seriously, do you know where Eleanore has gone?”  
  
“Well, she went down below through that place what we are all guarding,” began Snot. “Down in the basement and all…”  
  
“Oi,” interrupted Leg, “you is the oversister what has always been the oversister. I dunno if we is meant to be letting you—”  
  
And then Cattleya coalesced into a naked vampire, tore their heads off, and very carefully drunk none of their blood at all. Red light gleamed in her eyes as she unhinged her jaw, revealing a mouth full of needle-like teeth. Her fingernails were more akin to daggers than anything that might be carefully painted at an all-girls non-de-la-Vallière sleepover.  
  
“This is the last time I go do something in a fancy dress that Jessica hasn’t bespelled to shapechange with me,” she muttered, donning the stolen robe. “Awfully sorry for that, you little cuties. Don’t worry, Louise will be able to have the adorable blues bring you back. But I may need to massacre a teeny tiny few of you if you get between me and my big sister. Now, where are the rest?”

* * *

Minonly screams echoed from down below. Louise paused in her attempt to carefully, subtly, and cunningly ease her way down an old squeaky staircase without making any noise.  
  
“Oh, dang it, Catt,” she growled. “Why don’t you give away that they’re not alone in here? I went to all this effort to get in here quietly…”  
  
“Didn’t you make a golem fall in through the roof?” Scyl asked. “That no are quiet.”  
  
“… get in here quietly,” Louise said, ignoring him, “and then you had to just rush in. Do you think Char will have had time?”  
  
“Who?” asked Fettid, idly stabbing a book to keep in practice.  
  
“Shut up. Char and Grouchy are the same person. Have you ever seen them in the same place at the same time?” Fettid’s mouth fell open as her brain short-circuited from shock. “Maggat?”  
  
“Dunno,” he said, hefting his club. “But if the oversister are killing all the minions, it are making the odds more even.”  
  
“Yes,” Maxy agreed. “Also, she are making the evens more odd. It depends whether there is an odd or an even number of minions when she kills one.”  
  
Louise blinked. Was that a maths joke from a… oh, wait, Maxy. She probably should watch him. He might be smart enough to realise that she had no intentions of ever becoming the overlady again. “What to do?” she whispered to herself. No, she couldn’t rely on either the minions or Cattleya. But Cattleya was audibly killing a lot of minions – and if she delayed too long, most of those minions would be back on their feet.  
  
Oh well. Strike while they’re distracted by your mother, as her father had always said.  
  
“Let’s go!” she ordered, giving up any care for stealth. It was easy to see Cattleya’s passage, because of all the eviscerated minions painting the floor. And walls. And ceilings.  
  
The minions who had been fortunate enough to be somewhere else were flocking back to the commotion. They were panicking, and that in itself was unusual. Minions usually were too dense to show fear. Moreover, none of them had the magical brand on their left hands, and Louise’s eyes lit up at that. Her sister hadn’t got the magical loyalty of the minions! Oh, that was wonderful! There was still hope!  
  
“Stop it! You no is allowed here!” one of them shouted at her. Others turned, and some of them were raising weapons.  
  
“Do you know who I am?” Louise asked, glaring at the minion horde.  
  
“You is the overla—” began one of the minions, before he got smashed in the head by a poleaxe. Louise wasn’t sure why there was a telescope tied to the weapon, but it was probably because minions were stupid.  
  
“You is the little oversister,” the head-smasher said, and cast a gimlet eye over the crowd. “She no are the overlady no more.”  
  
“That isn’t what I asked you?” Louise said, her voice level and calm. “‘Overlady’ is just a title. So I’ll ask again. Do you know who _I_ am?”  
  
The minion blew a raspberry at her. “Do you know who I are? I are Coddy, I are the chief minion what no are Gnarl, and I are telling you to jog on. You ain’t the overlady no more, so you can’t tell us what to do!”  
  
Louise crossed her arms and glared down at the sea of minions, tapping her foot. “I am Louise de la Vallière,” she said in a clear voice. “I am no longer your overlady, no.” She smiled. “I now walk my mother’s path.”  
  
The minions stared at her blankly. Or, rather, she realised with dawning horror, more specifically they were looking at her feet.  
  
“I no see a pa—”  
  
“I am the daughter of Karin of the Heavy Wind,” Louise said, not quite fast enough to avoid minion stupidity. “You know about her. You know how many creatures much more powerful than you she’s killed. And,” she whispered a word, and sparks began to drink from the end of her wand, “I am a wind mage. Just. Like. Her.”  
  
“Argh! It are the Karin but smaller!” a voice called out from the crowd. Louise recognised Char’s voice. “We is gonna need to run away right now! The Karin has taught her, so we can see her and we is only moments from double-death!”  
  
Panic and confusion broke out in the ranks of the minions.  
  
“Panic!”  
  
“We is confused!”  
  
“Let’s go loot stuff what no are here!”  
  
Coddy brained one of the nearby minions who was about to turn tail. “Idiots! This no are the Karin! And we is minions! We no is meant to be scared!”  
  
“Well, if you says you is the head minion what no is Gnarl,” Maggat called out, “then I are gonna fight you in a one-on-one fight for that title! Winner gets all the loot of the other!”  
  
Even the noise of the minions panicking fell to a dull roar. A minion, willing to gamble all his loot on such a fight? Unthinkable! Coddy wetted his lips hungrily. “I no are gonna fall for that. You is just gonna have Fettid stab me inna back.”  
  
“So?” Maggat grinned. “Any minion what no are cunning enough to do that no are worth to be leader.”  
  
There was a general consensus of nods from the other minions. That was just common sense.  
  
“Ha! I no need to fight you, Maggat. I got lots of minions around me! They is all loyal to the real overlady!”  
  
“But she no are even the real overlady!” Char shouted out from the crowd. “Why she no give us the mark? She no make us her servants! So she no are our overlady!”  
  
“Who said that?” Coddy yelled.  
  
“Me! I are Ch… Grouchy! I are just a humble red, but I no want an overlady who no need us!”  
  
“You is a traitor!”  
  
“How can I be a traitor if she no are the overlady?”  
  
This was just wasting time. Louise’s eyelid twitched. She didn’t want to listen to the minions arguing what amounted to politics. Plus, they had totally ruined her line about being her mother’s daughter. No one was taking her seriously, and she was a hero now! Was she just too darn short and delicate looking to be taken seriously as a hero? That was it! She needed a heroic helmet! It worked as the overlady, so it’d work now!  
  
“Ahem!” She tapped her foot, and briefly wished for her metal boots. They just made a much more intimidating tapping noise. “Stop arguing and pay attention to me! I am Louise de la Vallière, daughter of Karin de la Vallière, and I will kill you all if you don’t get out of the way! Are you going to move?”  
  
Coddy snorted. “I bet the overlady are gonna reward me proper if I…”  
  
“Chain Lightning!”  
  
The other minions stared at Coddy’s smoking boots. The rest of him had gone AWOL, leaving only his shins behind. And he wasn’t the only strangely missing minion. The bolt had leapt from target to target, scything down targets like wheat. Some peculiarity of the magic meant that blue minions had taken the brunt of the spell.  
  
“Ouchie,” Scyl said from his nice safe position behind Louise. “Lightning ain’t a friend for us.”  
  
“It are ‘cause you is all wet,” Fettid said, a malicious grin on her lips.  
  
“Would you look at that?” Louise said, in the same clear voice. “I killed your healers. The only one left is Scyl and he’s on _my_ side. Do you fear death, minions? Because if I kill you, you’ll be staying dead.” She tilted her head. “Or perhaps a better question would be ‘Do you fear me?’.” Because I can kill you. I know how you come back to life. I’ve killed your blues. If you stand in my way, I’ll have your bodies thrown in the river so no one will ever find them.” She paused. “Well, what is it? Do you fear me?”  
  
“… okay-dokey, maybe you is the daughter of the Karin. And a wind magic-y girl,” a viscera-covered minion conceded.  
  
“I just wanna say that this was all Coddy’s idea!”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, we no involved. We was just pillaging…”  
  
“And looting!”  
  
“Yeah, and looting!”  
  
Louise pointed her wand at the minions, and rejoiced at the way they shifted away. Wasn’t that strange? For the first time, she felt the minions truly _feared_ her. She’d ordered them executed before, but they’d faced that with the same cheerful nature they took most threats. But now? Now, she had them scared.  
  
“I wonder who’s in charge now?” she asked in a low voice.  
  
The minions before her looked around. “Grouchy!” one of them volunteered. “He now the boss.”  
  
“Yeah, if he in charge, we no get killed by the tiny Karin.”  
  
“Ah ha!” ‘Grouchy’ postured. “Now I is in charge! We is gonna see some changes around here! ‘Cause I is the elected leader of this minion so-vet, and that means we can get rid of the boor-swah-see! For, you see, I is actually Char! Viva la Redvolution!”  
  
“No, you is not Char! Don’t be silly, Grouchy!”  
  
Char removed his fake glasses and moustache. Then he pulled off the turnip from his nose and ate it.  
  
“Oh wait, no, he are just Char,” said a very disappointed green.  
  
“Go to the Abyss, Char,” groaned a brown, “we no are interested in your stoopid Redvolution. You no is our leader.”  
  
“Easy now, boss lady, easy now,” Maggat said, hefting his club. “I guess you lot should get outta her way. I no know how much longer I can hold her back. ‘Cause, you know, the blood of the Karin are talking to her. So maybe if you is still seeing her, you is gonna die. So runnin’ away are probably the only way to not double-die.”  
  
The other minions ran away.  
  
Louise nodded. “Maggat,” she said. “I expect you to chase them down and beat them into proper order. And make sure no one else tries to follow me down here. I need to deal with my sister alone.”  
  
Maggat seemed torn between orders explicitly telling him to beat people up, and whatever loyalty to Louise existed in his filthy heart. “Should be keeping you safe, boss-lady,” he grumbled.  
  
“And the way to do that is to stop me being swamped by those minions trying to help Eleanore, if she starts ordering them with the Gauntlet,” Louise said. “Now, go.”  
  
“I dunno,” Maxy said. “Is that something she’d really—”  
  
“Go!”  
  
They went. Louise took a deep breath, running her fingers through her hair. Her sisters were down there. Both of them. One of them was the overlady, and knew far more spells than she ever had. The other was a blood crazed vampire with a grudge. She wasn’t sure what she could do, but she knew what she would do.  
  
Louise headed down to do the right thing.

* * *

Broken magical wards sparked in the darkness of the lower levels. Eleanore had smashed through ancient doors and new spells alike, and the shattered remnants of golems marked where magical guardians had tried to stop her.  
  
She stood in front of a magical circle that glowed a dull purple. Lines within it formed a pentagram, but a clock-like pair of hands had been added to the chalk markings. If one looked closely, it could be seen that the hands were moving. The crystal holding the trapped souls of Athe, Baelogji and Françoise-Athenais lay in the middle of the circle, where the purple light was brightest. Sharp words in the Dark Tongue spilled from her lips, read from the prematurely aged book she held in her hands. Her eyes burned bright yellow, the light shining out from under her stolen helmet.  
  
Cattleya stared at Eleanore from the shadows, eyes glowing red. Her breath escaped between her fangs in a low hiss. Her skin was pallid and drawn tight over her skull; her lips had receded slightly making her teeth more prominent.  
  
Eleanore shouldn’t be doing that. Eleanore was _bad_. Cattleya wasn’t meant to kill good people. Both her parents and Louise had been very clear about that.  
  
But Eleanore wasn’t good. Not anymore. And she had wanted to make her big sister hurt for a very, very long time. She wanted to make her suffer. There was no reason _not_ to make her pay for every night of darkness; every hunger pang; every nightmare of waking up with the Bloody Duke latched onto her.  
  
Eleanore fell silent, closing the book with a heavy snap.  
  
“I know you’re out there,” she said softly. “You make the scar I got from Graf Roteblut ache.”  
  
Cattleya reflexively inhaled, even though she had no need to breathe. Some habits were hard to break. Folding her hands behind her back, she stepped forwards into the edge of the circle of light cast by the ritual. “What of it?” she asked.  
  
Eleanore’s face was a mask. “Cattleya, go home,” she said. “You shouldn’t be involved in this.”  
  
“You can’t make me do anything,” Cattleya said. Anger broiled in her gut. She could smell Eleanore’s sweet blood, dripping from self-inflicted cuts on her palms.  
  
“You should be back with Mother and Father. You shouldn’t be caught up in Louise’s foolishness.”  
  
“Or what? You’ll kill me?” Cattleya laughed – cold and sharp and quite unlike her normal temperament. “Like I need to care about that. I’ve died once today already.” She paused, red eyes narrow. “Death doesn’t mean much to me. Thank you _oh_ so very much.”  
  
Eleanore flinched. “I don’t want to hurt you.”  
  
“That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful.” Cattleya leaned forwards. “Because I want to hurt you. I want to hear you scream. And when you’ve screamed enough, I’m going to show you what it’s like. You’ll get to see what a life without sunlight is like. You’ll get to feel everything I do. And the best thing about this? You’ll have to do what _I_ say.” Her razor-sharp claws dug into her palms. “There’ll be no escaping this. I’ll stop you finding any way out. You get to suffer this for ever and ever and ever.”  
  
“You don’t mean that. Cattleya wouldn’t mean that. Try to pretend to be her, at least for a little longer.”  
  
“I am Cattleya!” She stared at her big sister’s pale neck. Her inhuman vision could see every pulse force its way through her vein. Eleanore’s heart was racing. She was scared. Good.  
  
“Are you?”  
  
“No, I am not going to let you do that!” Cattleya snarled. “You don’t get to pretend that I’m not me, just to make it easier on you! If you’re going to kill me – again – then have the common decency to look me in the eye and do it! Not… not some… some cowardly pretence that—”  
  
Eleanore threw a handful of something in her face. Cattleya spat out the wood shavings, eyes automatically dropping to the ground. “That’s not even silver dust or garlic or…”  
  
“Count them.” Eleanore’s voice barely wobbled, despite how her heart was racing.  
  
And before Cattleya realised what she was doing, she was counting them. Dang it! Dang it all! Stupid useless… she bit down on her tongue, tasting her own stale blood. “Louise did the same _one two three four five six_ trick against me,” Cattleya mumbled, barely able to focus on anything apart from the _seven eight nine ten eleven twelve_ wood shavings.  
  
“Just keep counting,” Eleanore told her. “It’s in your nature.”  
  
“Do you know the difference _thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen_ between now and then?”  
  
She let her nails dig into her hands. The pain brought her back to herself, and she sprung. She slammed into her sister, bowling her over. They rolled over and over, but Cattleya was simply vastly stronger than Eleanore and all too easily she was kneeling on her chest. All she could hear was the sound of Eleanore’s heartbeat, pumping fresh, rich, alive blood around. Merely human fists beat at her chest. They might as well have been punching stone.  
  
“I didn’t want to hurt Louise,” Cattleya whispered, leaning in. Her jaw unhinged, mouth as wide as a steel trap. “I ‘o ‘an’ ‘o ‘urt ‘o.”  
  
Eleanore frowned. “What? What was that?”  
  
Cattleya rehinged her jaw. “I saw, I do want to—”  
  
“Eternal Tomb!”  
  
The explosion slammed Cattleya into the ceiling, where she bounced off and hit a bookcase. Eleanore pulled herself up to one knee. Her helmet and the exposed parts of her face were covered in soot. She stared at her left hand. “Oh. Right. I have Louise’s magic,” she muttered, trying to shake the ringing out of her ears. “I suppose that works.”  
  
She took a deep breath.  
  
“I can feel you flagging,” Cattleya’s voice called out from the shadows. “Your heartbeat is pounding like a drum. But you don’t smell just of fear sweat. You’re exhausted, aren’t you?”  
  
“Just go sort the books,” Eleanore ordered. “But first count them.”  
  
“I told, you that won’t… _one, two_ … no, no, it definitely won’t work on me.”  
  
Eleanore whispered a spell, and her left hand ignited in a blade of smoky red fire. The harsh light broke up the intensifying eerie purple glow of the ritual circle. And not a moment too soon, because Cattleya hissed at the sight and retreated back into the shadows.  
  
“Just… just stay back,” Eleanore said. “It’ll all be over soon. Soon. You’ll understand.”  
  
“Yes. It will,” Cattelya whispered from behind Eleanore’s ear. And then she hit her very hard, sending her flying into the same pile of books.  
  
The paper ignited, the magical tomes burning in many colours, and Cattleya snarled. The fire blade from Eleanore’s hand flickered and went out as she rolled away from the burning books. Laboriously she pulled herself to her feet again, and summoned a ball of fire to hand.  
  
“You… you won’t get… get me,” wheezed the winded Eleanore. “Fire. Fire keeps you back.”  
  
In the blink of an eye Cattleya was up in her elder sister’s face, and with a hand that cracked like a whip she slapped her sister. Another blink of an eye, and she was safely back.  
  
“Are you so very sure?” Cattleya asked sweetly. “The question was always who got their revenge first. Me, or Louise. But I think I deserve it more.” The light from the burning tomes caught her fangs.  
  
Thunder boomed, deafening in such a dense space. In the darkness, the blue-white of lightning was blinding. Eleanore gasped in pain.  
  
Cattleya paused. She turned to face Louise standing in the doorway behind her, revealing the head-sized hole clean through her chest. “That was a little a… little… clumsy…” she mouthed, trying to speak without lungs. Sagging, she collapsed to her knees, and then hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. The skin sloughed off Cattleya’s body, revealing the badly decayed skeleton underneath, and with a faint exhalation she was still.  
  
“I’m sorry!” Louise whispered, heart curled up in a ball in her chest. Eleanore was staring at her, eyes wide. “I missed,” she lied.

* * *

And then there were two de la Vallière sisters left.  
  
“You didn’t miss.” Eleanore’s glowing eyes were wide. “And that was a wind spell.”  
  
“Yes. It was.” Louise kept her wand pointed at Eleanore’s chest, breathing deeply. The bright purple glow from the circle hurt her eyes, especially now that the magical tomes were just embers. She was feeling the strain of using so much magic in a short period. Without the cursed power of the overlady in her, she seemed to have a lot less stamina. Or perhaps that was just because she only knew square-rank wind magic.  
  
“You should have aimed for me.”  
  
“Perhaps I should have.” And yet she couldn’t. Her de la Vallière blood had wanted her to kill her eldest sister and rid the world of a rival once and for all, and she… couldn’t. Wouldn’t. There was no way she was going to let her sister die. Not when she could save her.  
  
She hadn’t wanted to kill Cattleya either, but that was reversible.  
  
“You’re not a wind mage. You’re a failure.”  
  
“No.” Louise clenched her jaw. “I’m not.”  
  
Eleanore’s shoulders slumped. With her free hand, she pulled the dented helmet off, and tossed it aside. It clattered on the stone floor. The soot covered all the bits of her face that had been exposed, but the rest of her was ghost-pale – save for the redness from the slap. “No,” she said softly, sweaty blonde hair falling around her shoulders. “I suppose you’re not.”  
  
“Stop this,” Louise said softly, almost kindly. “There’s no need.”  
  
“There is.”  
  
“There really isn’t. Don’t you remember what father always used to say? ‘No matter how tempting it seems, never meddle with the nature of time’?”  
  
“This is different. I know what I’m doing.”  
  
Louise tried not to grind her teeth. “Listen to yourself, Eleanore. ‘This is different’. ‘I know what I’m doing’. You can’t trust anyone who talks like that.”  
  
“You don’t understand,” Eleanore said, clenching her left hand into a fist. “I can do it. I can save them all. I can go back and change things and the whole world will be a better place.”  
  
“What are you talking about? Give it up, Elly. Father was very clear. Using evil magic to break the timeline never ends well. You’ll just make things worse.”  
  
“I can’t make things worse!” It came out in a scream as Eleanore’s seeming calm broke, the emotions welling up from inside. Louise shuddered to see the depths of the self-loathing on display. “We were the best! The brightest! And every one of us has fallen to evil and it’s all my fault! It all happened because of me! I can fix this! I can save Mags! I can save Fran! I can save Cattleya!”  
  
Louise’s stomach lurched, butterflies whirling in it. She knew those kinds of dark thoughts. Oh, Founder, she knew those dark thoughts. “You won’t make things better if you were never born! It’ll strip out everything you’ve ever done!”  
  
“Oh, I’ll still be born. I just need to have died twelve years ago,” Eleanore said. She was past screaming now, talking quickly and with an awful, desperate intensity. As if she could force Louise to agree that her points made sense, if only she could explain them fast enough. “I’ll have died a hero, without getting corrupted by this terrible power. I won’t have got my little sister killed and turned into a blood-hungry monster. Mags won’t be consorting with demons. I won’t have trapped Fran’s soul in a crystal with two dark gods. They’ll be there for Jean-Jacques – more than I could manage for him. I was so caught up in my misery that I drifted away and left him alone. And the family won’t have to put up with me and get to have Cattleya as the heir. It’ll be better for everyone. Even me.”  
  
“Eleanore, I forbid you from going back in time and killing yourself!” Louise yelled.  
  
“You’re not Mother! Stop trying to sound like her!”  
  
Louise kept her wand at the ready. “It’s not going to work, you know that,” she said. “Because you’re here. So if you go back in time and kill yourself, that means that you’re not here, so you can’t…”  
  
“I know what you’re trying to say, but no, that’s not how it works,” Eleanore said, sounding a little more like her normal self. “I don’t have - ha! - time to explain it to you right now, but suffice to say, the Great Spell of Elias Chronophagus shatters time. Cause and effect has no hold on what happens. You can in fact go back in time and murder your grandfather. Goodness knows ours deserves it, but that would hurt Cattleya and I don’t want that. She and father are the only ones worth saving.” She laughed bitterly. “If only I could go back and kill our great great great times something grandfather and spare all of Halkeginia the affliction of our family. But even the power of a dark god isn’t enough to go back far enough to kill Louis the Bloody when he was still alive.”  
  
“He’s dead.” Louise squared his jaw. “Cattleya killed him. She already got her revenge.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter. That’s not Cattleya. Not really.” Eleanore’s voice was soft. “It’s a blood-sucking monster with her memories. It’s a monster that thinks it’s Cattleya. But it’s not really her. Cattleya died. And it was my fault. All my fault.”  
  
“It was Louis’ fault! He was the vampire!” Louise snapped. “And it is Cattleya! You’re wrong about how vampires work! It’s her soul trapped in her body! It has to eat life force to stay mobile! It’s her, not a monster.”  
  
“It’s a monster in there. You might not remember her, but I do. That thing wanted to make me into one of its spawn. Just to make me suffer.”  
  
“It is her!”  
  
“It is not! Cattleya was sweet and kind and innocent. That… that thing is a vampire. An amoral monster who reminds me of my failure every time I have to see my sister’s little face twisted into monstrosity. It’s my fault. I was stupid and sixteen. I’ve lived with this guilt for twelve years, knowing that there’ll never be any salvation for Cattleya and that her soul was eaten by the thing that now lives in her body.” Eleanore’s nose was running. “And no matter what I do, it won’t make up for it.”  
  
“Look, you were right! Not about the guilt thing! What you said earlier, about how the evil power gets into your head!” Louise blurted out, getting more and more worried. The fire had gone out in her big sister, and now she just sounded numb. “This isn’t you! Or it… it is you, but it’s not all of you! The power of the overlady, you took it from me by beating me and… and I’m finding myself so much calmer and not getting angry in the same way, so this… this _drive_ you’re feeling, this… I don’t know how you’re feeling it, but it’s something and—”  
  
“Hush.” Eleanore shook her head. “If I could spare you this, I would. But I can’t. Not without killing you when you’re born – and if I did that, I couldn’t reliably save Cattleya. I’ll just have to hope that Mother and Father can help you in this better history. Or put you down if you go over the edge. I wish I could do more, I really could, but this tainted blessing is your curse to bear. For once, it’s not my fault. You were born an heir to the Void.”  
  
Louise blinked. The words didn’t seem to make sense. Was Eleanore losing her mind? “What? No, no, I… I’m not a saint! Louis was breeding us for the power of the overlords, not—”  
  
Eleanore met her eyes, gaze weary. “You think there’s a difference?”  
  
“Yes! There’s a difference between the Sacred Void and this evil power!” Her fingers clenched around her wand. “And you’d know, too, if you weren’t crazy because you took the evil power and you’re not used to it!”  
  
“No, Louise,” Eleanore said, in a whisper. “The Void isn’t sacred. The world was born from the Void. Once it was pure. When Brimir used it, it was truly a holy place. But we polluted it. Men, elves, dragons – all of us. The Void was empty and pure, outside good and evil. Once. No more.” She lifted her hand. The ruby on the back of the gauntlet was still blood red, even in the bright purple light from the ritual circle. “The power runs in the royal families and in the papacy. You’ve read your history books. You know how the monarchs of Halkeginia act. You know how many popes have gone mad. They taint the Void, and the Void taints them.”  
  
“No! You’re wrong! There are good popes! Good monarchs! It’s not a doom! It can be fought!”  
  
“No. It can’t. I… I don’t think this world can be saved. We’ve tainted it too much. Our family is rotten and you’re the culmination of our sins. If I just remove myself from this world, it might survive a little longer – but I’m really not sure how much of a difference it will make. The Void itself is polluted with wickedness. No wonder nothing ever goes right.” Eleanore turned back to face her ritual circle. “Sorry, Louise. I am sorry,” she said, looking away, shoulders shaking. “Truly, sorry. I can’t save you. It’s… it’s all I can do to try to save Cattleya and my old friends. I’ve thought and thought and… and I can’t.”  
  
“Eleanore!” Louise cried out. “Stop! Stop! The evil… it’s just making you get sad like I used to get angry!”  
  
“No. I won’t. I can’t. It’s already too late for you. And for this misshapen, aborted history.”  
  
“There’s always time!”  
  
“There’s not. Because I already set up the ritual. I did it before the vampire showed her face,” Eleanore said. “All the time we’ve been talking, the power’s been draining from the crystal into the spell. All I needed to do was delay you. Both of you.”  
  
Behind her, the world shattered like glass. Something chimed, the sonorous tolling of a bell. Blackness flared up within the spell circle, casting shadows over the room. Louise snapped off a spell, but her lightning vanished into one of the cracks in the world.  
  
And then there was no more time.


	64. Realignment 12-4

“ _My dear, you wouldn’t believe what happened today! A spectre made itself known to me, a vision of strangeness! Sadly she got away, but she was awfully young and pretty! If only I could have drained her blood. Such a shame. No, no, she wasn’t one of my victims. I’d definitely remember whose form preserved their youth that well._ ”  
  
\- Madeline de la Vallière (née Ambracia)

* * *

The world rang like a finger on a wine glass. Louise’s vision blurred, as if she was spinning very fast while also remaining stationary. Her inner ear protested the feeling of moving without moving, and she sagged and retched.   
  
Lifting her eyes and wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she looked around. The room had been torn in half. She was standing on the stone floor, but ahead of her, where Eleanore had been, there was just a sea of purple light. Across the sea she could see little islands, frozen tableaus of time.  
  
The air felt too thick, and a little bit stale. When she waved her hand through the air, it was like there were unseen cobwebs there.  
  
Eleanore had actually done it. She had shattered time. And for some reason - perhaps because Louise had been close to the ritual - she was in a tiny fragment of the world.  
  
Poor Eleanore. Poor, poor Elenaore. Louise recognised that self-hate. That feeling that maybe the family would be better off if you just… weren’t around anymore. For her, it had been because she had been a magic-less failure, a zero, a nothing.  
  
… though if Eleanore was right, that meant she was a mage of the sacred void of Brimir, which was corrupted by evil and what a nightmare that was! She wasn’t going to think about that. Not yet.  
  
But her big sister hated herself because she had been sixteen and stupid and tried to kill a vampire - and wound up releasing him. She hadn’t meant to, but she had. And everything had gone downhill because of that. That only made Louise more certain that she had to find a way to save her. The evil force within them had probably pushed Louise into trying to prove herself, but Eleanore was being coaxed to be self-destructive.   
  
She had to find her. And quickly. Before Eleanore killed her past self.  
  
Now, what had Mother always told her to do if stuck outside of time due to evil magic?  
  
“ _Now, remember, Louise, if you find yourself stuck outside of time due to evil magic, always ask yourself why on earth you were such a fool as to let them complete their ritual rather than just killing them. It’s always easier to defeat the villain before they finish their dark spell, so don’t prevaricate!_ ” the mental image of her mother said.  
  
“Argh! Not useful, Mother!” Louise moaned. “You’re right, yes, but that’s not helpful _now_.”   
  
She racked her brain for anything else her mother had told her about time. Only kill Germanian tyrants if the history books record them as dying about now, or if they’re about to win in the present and this is a last ditch effort to save the world. Never engage in inappropriate behaviour with relatives no matter how attractive they are. Never use your real name. Always make sure that you actually have travelled in time and it’s not a prank by the other Manticore Knights who think it’d be funny to pay some peasants to dress up in clothing that’s three hundred years out of date and tell you you’ve been sent into the past by an evil wizard.  
  
Something about that drew her attention. What had it been?. Aha! It had been just after her mother had thumped her father because he’d started sniggering about that prank thing. She… she had said that one of the most reliable ways of navigating these kinds of un-spaces and un-times was following chains of correlation and meaning, hadn’t she? Something about there always being a certain logic to this sort of thing, and you just had to work out how things interlinked and hop between the broken moments until you found the right time where you had to be.  
  
What was her plan? One, do not accidentally destroy history. Two, do not deliberately destroy history. Three, stop Eleanore from destroying history. Four, do not die.  
  
Louise reviewed her plan. It seemed solid. She just had to avoid standing on any butterflies while she stopped her sister. And not die, of course.  
  
There were certainly butterflies churning in her stomach as she stepped up to the sea of violet light. She peered at the horizon. One of the islands looked like the de la Vallière estate. That was the right place. She wasn’t sure when it was, but that step could come later.  
  
And now that she stepped closer, she could see that there were stepping stones shaped like clocks in the light. Louise swallowed. This promised to be unpleasant. But she couldn’t think of a better way.   
  
“Well,” she said, breathing into her cupped hands. “Here goes nothing. This better work. Or else...”  
  
And then something heavy and wooden hit her in the back of the leg. Louise toppled forwards and vanished into the ocean of time with a scream.  
  
Something moved in the shadows of the vacated fragmented moment.  
  
Eyes glowing yellow, Ozymandias muttered monkey-ish vulgarities to himself and tossed the broken plank in after Louise.

* * *

This was the first war; the dawn war; the greatest war that ever would be.  
  
On one side of the scorched battlefield was a final alliance of the forces of good. A solid core of short, armoured, bearded figures held the centre ground. They were an immovable anvil against which all foes were dashed. Poleaxes rose and fell in unison as they smashed and diced their way through anything which dared attack them. Rune-covered war machines spewed out arrows and razor-sharp blades. Dragons roared overhead, ridden by powerful mages and brave knights, while light footed elves flitted around the flanks, dashing in with deadly magics. Oh, and there were some short people with hairy feet. They were probably doing something helpful, or at least they were going to claim that they had been instrumental to the whole victory when the history books got written.  
  
On the other, the endless hordes of evil. Demons, the undead, the corrupt, orcs - and above all, minions everywhere. Overhead hung Albion, the utterly corrupt birthplace of the dark lord. Through his power he had torn the island into the sky, and it bristled with malign weaponry.  
  
There was a lot more evil than good on this battlefield.  
  
Of course, Louise de la Vallière was not paying much attention to this. She was too busy falling from the sky. Scrabbling through her pockets, hair whipping around her face, she managed to find her wand. The ground was getting awfully close awfully quickly, and the wind was stealing away her breath.  
  
Louise managed to force out a levitation spell. She felt the force drag on her as the magic bled off speed, but the ground was coming up faster than she was slowing down. Fortunately, when she touched down she found that what she had taken for green grass was in fact swamp weed.   
  
She sunk up to the waist. Admittedly, that was less than it would have been for other people, but it was still unpleasant.  
  
And then a plank of wood nearly hit her in the head.  
  
Hissing bowdlerised curse words, Louise dragged herself out of the filthy water. Looking up, she could see a scar of purple light in the sky. Maybe if she…  
  
Louise threw herself down with a squelch as a dragon roared overhead, breathing lightning. The sound of the thunder was an assault on her ears. Okay. Right. She was not going up and out that way, even if she had enough strength to reach that height. Which she didn’t.   
  
The battle lines were in constant flux, and minion fireballs were much scarier when they were flying over your head. It wasn’t even really a thought to run away from the orcs and minions and towards… elves, she realised with a sinking feeling. She just had to hope that they wouldn’t try to kill a human on sight, because she knew minions and not only would they kill her, they would also steal her clothes.  
  
She found herself face to face with a long-eared elf warrior who was falling back. She wasn’t entirely sure if they were a boy-elf or a girl-elf, but under the wide-brimmed hat they had gorgeous long red hair and earrings. The elf raised their weapon, but recognition flared in their eyes and they grabbed her hand, yanking her back towards the elf lines.   
  
They pulled her back behind a glowing shield sustained by elf wizards, just before Albion unleashed a barrage of flaming rocks that made the earth shake and filled the air with dust. The elves seemed to suffer from the noise even worse than she did. It must have been the long ears.  
  
Another elf, who she was fairly sure was female judging by the chest region, jabbed her finger at Louise and asked something. The maybe-a-male elf who’d saved her retorted with something which included the words “Markay maga” while pointing at her wand. That seemed to placate the she-elf, and she turned back to the short bearded armoured warrior who was shouting at her.   
  
From the short person’s arm gestures and their jabbed fingers up at Albion, things didn’t seem to be going well. Louise thought that they wanted to pull back - or possibly they were accusing the elf of wanting to pull back. The elf’s tone wasn’t helping, and Louise could hear the arrogance dripping from her tone.  
  
Pulling herself to her feet, Louise investigated the elven shield that was holding off the bombardment from Albion. It seemed miraculous, able to reflect even direct hits from the island overhead which blotted out the sun. They were safe in here. But with a sinking feeling, she wasn’t sure how long she’d be safe for. The elves sustaining the magic looked exhausted, and they were flinching each time a new rock landed nearby.  
  
Peering through the shimmer, she tried to see if there was anywhere where there was a time rift. She had to get out of here. She didn’t want to die here, and she didn’t know how much time she had to stop Eleanore. If the concept of time even applied here, which it might not.  
  
There! Though the dust, she could see purple light! Maybe the flaming rocks had damaged time enough that she could get out, or maybe it was just that the waves of enemies ahead of them had been thinned out. The minions had died in vast numbers under the Albionese bombardment, but that wasn’t going to stop them; not with blues already hard at work. These idiot elves and shorter-than-hers were wasting the chance to strike back and deny them their resurrections.  
  
Louise chewed her knuckle. She had to get through. Somehow.  
  
Wait. She had a plan. It was probably a stupid plan, but it was that or stay here and risk getting hit by a stray fireball from a red.

* * *

Years later, stories would be told of the brave Markay warrior who charged the enemy lines, screaming a berserker battle cry. Though a mere slip of a girl, her bravery was enough to shame those who had been about to flee. No dwarf or elf could be shamed by some pink-haired girl, and they rallied and did not rout, fighting with distinction and honour. She was honoured in song by all who had seen her, although admittedly not for very long in the case of the dwarves. Sadly, though, her body was never found.  
  
The fact that she was screaming “Argh, mustn’t destroy the timeline, mustn’t destroy the timeline!” as she charged was not recorded, due to the fact that the listening dwarves and elves didn’t speak Tristainian.

* * *

Unfortunately, the next fragment of time along was no better. The vegetation had concealed that this was another battlefield, but as soon as she stepped into this shard the screams of the dying and the clash of metal filled the air.  
  
Poking her head around the trees, Louise saw that this time it was humans versus the short armoured figures from the last war. The humans had routed and were being cut down where they stood. Clusters of mages tried to stand and fight, but the armoured troops were too well protected even against powerful magics. Their eyes under their helmets were wild, and some were stopping even in the middle of battle to loot the dead. In the rear of their lines, Louise could see big clanking metal war machines, covered in glowing runes - and, apparently, coated in gold and gems.  
  
Swallowing hard, Louise pressed her back against the tree and fought back her urge to help the poor humans out there. She was a hero and wanted to save them - but she couldn’t! She mustn’t! She’d destroy the timeline if she won. And she’d die if she didn’t. She’d probably die. Mages who had to be at least triangle rank were being cut down like firewood by the inexorable advance of the short armoured figures.  
  
But people were dying! Dang it! Dang it! Dang it! Biting her lip so hard it bled, Louise clutched her wand to her chest and wished she could close her ears. The tramp of their metal-clad feet were getting closer and they’d see her for sure if she ran, but she couldn’t kill them! Not without changing history!  
  
All the hairs rose on the back of her neck. Black clouds swirled overhead. Louise could taste the dark magic in the air, thick and nauseating.   
  
And then every single short armoured figure on the battlefield dropped dead, wreathed in black lightning. The clatter as they fell was deafening.  
  
No one moved for a long moment.  
  
A ragged cheer rose up from the human survivors. Louise wanted to cheer, but couldn’t. She could see the burned skeletons in their armour. The air was so thick with wicked power that she wanted to be sick. Her eyes stung from tears, and she wasn’t sure who she was crying for.

* * *

Hopping off the final clock-stepping stone, Louise sunk to her knees and gasped for breath. She had nearly died! Those armoured figures had nearly found her. And before that, she’d nearly died on that hellish battlefield! And before that… she gritted her teeth. She couldn’t dwell on that. If she started counting all the ways she’d nearly died since she woke up this morning, she’d be here all day.  
  
Louise was feeling more than a little stressed, and needed a brief moment to recollect herself while nothing was trying to kill her.  
  
She patted her chest, feeling her lungs burning. Back on the giant battlefield, those minions hadn’t been at all like the ones she knew! Even when her ones were being threatening and dangerous, they still were dumb and goofy. Those minions had been lean, sleek, killing machines. In fact, they had looked like those blort-ing minions that she had made before she’d given up on trying to get the minion hive working. Lord, was that what minions had been made to be like?   
  
Once she had her breath back, Louise slowly eased herself to her feet, hugging onto the cold stone wall. There wasn’t very much light in here, and looking behind her she couldn’t see any useful other time fragments to get to. They all looked like terrible battles. So she had to find another sea of time and try to find a path back to her own time.  
  
There were voices up ahead. Louise tried to listen in. It sounded Romalian, but it wasn’t a dialect she understood. It hovered just at the edge of understanding. There were two voices, a man and a woman, and they were arguing.  
  
There was a taste to the air. A familiar taste she knew too well from her tower. The taste of evil.  
  
Pressing her back against the wall, Louise sneaked closer to the voices. Her clothes were still soaked from the dang swamp, and she was consciously holding off feeling sorry for herself until she wasn’t lost in time. Deep red light streamed through a gap ahead of her, and the voices were louder in that direction. Kneeling, she peered through the gap.  
  
There were two people in there. The first of them was a blonde woman, in a sensible brown leather coat, a brightly coloured scarf and a sheathed sword at her hip - except, no! That wasn’t a woman, with ears like that! She was an elf!  
  
And the blond man in there wore metal gauntlets. His eyes glowed with a dull yellow light as he looked up at the tower heart next to them. It shone with a faint blue light. This had to be a tower.  
  
Louise swallowed. The metal gloves he wore looked like they were made out of the same metal as the Gauntlet. And on the back of his left hand, four rubies gleamed. Four rubies, where she just had one.  
  
Oh no. No, no, this was some past overlord, some powerful figure of darkness who had acquired both gauntlets and had all four rubies.  
  
She shouldn’t watch. She couldn’t look away.  
  
The elf shouted at the man, her voice high pitched and shrill. Louise could grasp enough of the almost-Romalian that echoed around the dimly lit tower interior to know that she was angry at him. She was shouting something about stopping him, about how she shouldn’t have gone along with this the first time. The word ‘Cathay’ appeared twice, too. His responses were quiet and even-toned. He sounded like he was justifying himself.  
  
When the elf turned her back on the overlord, Louise could see that she was crying. Fat tears trickled down her cheeks.  
  
He opened the bag beside him, pulling out an ornate helmet made of dark metal. It looked just like the metal that the Gauntlet was made of. Just like the two metal gloves he was wearing. Raising his hands, he lifted the helmet up and placed it upon his head.  
  
And in that moment the elf moved, blade in hand. Her sword glowed with unearthly light. In the blink of an eye she had drawn, cut, and stood, bloodied sword in hand.   
  
The world seemed to pause for a moment.  
  
The man sagged. His right hand hit the ground. His left hand hit the ground. His head hit the ground.  
  
And then his decapitated, armless corpse collapsed. Something rushed out of the body, something cold and dark and barely there at all.   
  
Louise didn’t understand what the elf said, but she didn’t need to; not to hear the anger and the sorrow in her voice. She turned away from him and walked away, weeping openly. And then the sword started speaking to the elf, the runes on the blade glowing a morbid red through its coating of blood. By the time she reached the exit on the far end of the hall, she was hugging the bloodied blade.  
  
Swallowing, Louise took one last glance at the fallen helmet and gauntlets - plural. So much power there. Gnarl had mentioned those things, and encouraged her to find them.  
  
But no. No. Her will was strong. It was wrong. They were evil. And she was not going to destroy the timeline. The left gauntlet had to eventually find its way to her, so someone else had to find it. And that meant she had to move, because she didn’t think she could take an elf-lady as dangerous as that one.  
  
Time to go.

* * *

By the twentieth fragment of time, Louise had stopped counting. The entire experience had rather lost its novelty.  
  
A grand city stood before her, armoured knights in shining plate and bright tabards riding out through the main gates. All was sunny and glorious.  
  
The next time fragment was the same city, but now soot streaked the walls and strange infernal machinery pumped out smoke. A clattering of armoured horseless carriages proceeded out, demonic seals on their raised banners. By the next fragment, here was a new lake covering half the ruined city and a vast expanse of land downstream from it. A few leather-clad savages picked their way through the rubble, trying to salvage what they could find. They ran from barbarian horsemen who rode by, wielding savage flails and curved swords. Oh, and look, by the next one they’d built a new town on the shores of the lake where once the old city had been. And pointed hats were in for women this year.  
  
Actually, Louise thought, that looked like it was probably Lake Ragdorian, on the border of Tristain and Gallia. It was about the right shape. Ah ha! She now knew where she was. Which was on completely the wrong side of the country, and she had no idea when she was.  
  
Dang. Time to move on and try to get closer to the capital, maybe. She rubbed her aching thighs. All this jumping around on clock-shaped stepping stones was doing a number on her legs.  
  
Next fragment. The world was dark. Overhead, a blackness blocked out the sun, ringed by a flaming disc. From the architecture in the gloom, Louise thought she was probably in Romalia, in Roma itself. Well, she’d found a capital. Just not the one she was looking for.  
  
“For thousands of years, mankind has dreamed of destroying the sun! But today, I shall go beyond that! I shall exceed the greatest dream of humanity, and I shall devour the sun!” ranted the black-clad pope standing at the entrance to the church, surrounded by scantily clad allegedly-nuns. In their defence, what little they were wearing was black, although rather shinier than was customary for a woman of the cloth.  
  
Hmm, Louise thought wearily. Yes, she knew about when she was as well as where she was.  
  
“It will replace my feeble and decrepit human heart, its power fuelling me and me alone, and through this I shall rule over a blackened world forever!”  
  
At least this had still happened. That was a good thing, probably? It meant time was mostly surviving if things that she knew had happened were still happening.  
  
“I am invincible! I am unstoppable! I am… you know, my left arm is really hurting. I wonder why? Oh well. Today is the day of my ultim…”  
  
And she was gone.  
  
Far too many crossings of the sea of time later, and she was fairly sure the area she found herself in resembled the de la Vallière estate. She wasn’t quite sure, but the terrain seemed right and the smell was familiar. The sun was bright, birds were cheeping, and on the other side of the clearing a young deer grazed on soft green grass.  
  
“Hello,” Louise said to it happily. “I think I’m nearly there, Mademoiselle Deer.”  
  
With a shrill ululation, a man pounced on the deer and beat it to death with a mixture of the club he carried and his bare hands. Birds scattered and the peace of the woods was broken. By the end of it, the savage man’s hands were smeared with gore.  
  
Louise stared at the hulking man wearing poorly tanned furs and waving a club over his head. She noticed, with a dawning sense of horror, that he was red-headed and well-tanned and looked more than a little von Zerbst-ish. Oh dear. Oh dear. What if he c-captured her and took her off to be his cave-dwelling bride? She… well, okay, she’d probably just shoot him with a tiny lightning bolt and hope it wouldn’t ruin history forever, but it’d still be scary!  
  
“I’m awfully sorry, I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere,” she quavered. “I think I’ve gone the wrong way. Can you tell me which way…”  
  
The hulking man reached into his furs, and pulled out a monocle, putting it on. “Oh, Tristanian!” he said, in a pronounced Germanian accent. “I apologise if I frightened you!”  
  
“Um,” Louise said, feeling like she had just had a rug she was standing on yanked out from under her.  
  
“I like to hunt the old fashioned way, jah! It is very healthy! Much more healthy than sitting on a horse! Much weight I lose this way! The thrill of the wild! Of chasing down animals and beating them to death!” He peered at her. “Are you a de la Vallière?”  
  
“No,” lied Louise de la Vallière. Inwardly, she celebrated. Yes! Finally! She was recent enough that her family existed. “I’ve heard that they’re very bad people,” she said, for lack of anything more precise. It was a useful ice-breaker, and almost always accurate.  
  
“Yes! That they are! You must be careful! If you had wandered a little bit to the west, you would be in their lands! That is not safe! The living dead walk the border regions, and they do terrible things to people they do not think would be missed. Once they turned me into a werewolf!  
  
“A w-werewolf?” Louise asked, sudden fear churning in her gut.  
  
“Ah, fear not, fraulein! I got better. Still, that was when I learned the value of a good workout! Like this!”  
  
Louise narrowed her eyes. “West, you say. Which way is that? So I can avoid it.” He pointed it out. “Well, thank you very much. Good luck with your…” she tried not to gag, “... hunting.”  
  
“Ah ha! Yes!” Hefting the dead deer onto his shoulders, he walked off, whistling.  
  
Louise let him get out of sight, and headed straight in the direction she had been explicitly told not to go.

* * *

The chamber was gloomy. The air smelt of old rust. Dark stains lined every single floor tile. The blindfolded servants were playing a suitably dramatic dirge, to honour their mistress who stood before the large golden bath.   
  
Frowning, Madeleine de la Vallière considered her conundrum. The peasantry were jolly improper, all things considered. They had no idea of proper chastity before marriage. And this was darned bullsugar, because there were aggravatingly few beautiful young virgins left in the de la Vallière lands. The ones who she hadn’t already made use of had quickly shed their purity without blessed matrimony. Even the dowdy women and ugly men seemed to have caught on.  
  
Yes, the villages were going through a population boom and that meant her husband had plenty of soldiers, but that didn’t help her problem.  
  
She glanced down at the sack of puppies beside her. They were very handsome dogs, it was true, and they were virgins. The rituals didn’t _specify_ humans were required. But there were certain side effects to non-human blood if used to excess, and more than that there was a shocking lack of blood in a pup. The contents of the sack would barely be enough to wash her hair in.   
  
Oh well. Wants must what wants must. She began to unfasten the neck of her dress.  
  
And that was when a young pink-haired woman walked out of the solid wall in front of her.  
  
“Oh, I say!” Madeline exclaimed, dropping her knife with a clatter.  
  
The young woman looked around. “Oh! Is… is this the Yellow Reading Room?” she asked, sniffing. Her nose wrinkled up and she looked down in disgust. “Uh… well, no, but the architecture looks right.”  
  
“Who do you jolly well think you are, barging in here like this?” Madeline demanded. She was practically vibrating, which was producing no small amount of jiggling in her generous figure. “I am trying to do something here with an adorable sack of puppies and you can’t just come in here! Who are you? Did I murder you? Because I don’t remember if I did and I’m awfully sorry to say I’m not at all sorry, so if you plan to haunt me can you come back later?”  
  
The young woman recognised her, eyes widening, before she frowned. “I… am a ghost who walked these halls for much of my life,” she said. “Yes. I should go. By the way, what year is this?”  
  
Madeline cocked her head. “Oh, yes, of course, time moves differently for the…” she paused, as an idea struck her. This girl did look very alive for a ghost, which meant she was rich in stolen life energy. De la Vallière ghosts tended to do that. And possibly that could serve her very well. “Come to think of it, there really is no need for you to go. Come, you adorable cute little girl-ghost and tell me what portentous message you bear.”  
  
“I… no, I really must go. My words are for another.” The young woman looked around.  
  
“No, no, I jolly well insist.” Madeline took a step forwards, lips parted. Oh, she could almost smell the blood. The girl was so very alive for a ghost who walked through walls. “By any chance, are you a virgin?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You didn’t happen to kill yourself because of an unwanted pregnancy? Did you remain proof against the silly sins of the flesh?”   
  
The ghost-girl blushed bright red. “Well… um… what kind of… um… a question is… I really have to go!”  
  
Was she mortified because she was an innocent, or mortified to confess her sins? Well, she was a de la Vallière, Madeline considered, so it was more likely she was embarrassed about a lack of experience in carnality. Her smile grew wider.  
  
The ghost actually seemed to be cringing, desperately trying to avoid Madeline’s gaze. Her wandering eyes noticed something. The girl leapt forwards, grabbing up something that had been lurking in the shadows. “Got you, you little monster! I knew you’d be lurking around, waiting for me to show up! Ha! I’m wise to you!”  
  
Something chittered back. Madeline blinked. What was a little gold-furred monkey with glowing yellow eyes doing in her ritual room?   
  
Her chain of thought was interrupted when the monkey bit the girl on the arm. She screamed and flailed it against the wall, vanishing through it again.  
  
Madeline pursed her lips, and sighed. What a shame. Picking up her sacrificial knife, she licked the blade. “Oh well. Back to the puppies.” She opened her sack, and pulled out the first one, which looked at her with big eyes. “Oh, you adorable little thing! I’m going to be a little sad when I cut your throat!”

* * *

Arms flailing, teeth clenched, Louise leapt off the clock stepping stone, golden lion tamarin clamped onto her arm. Founder, she’d nearly fallen in so many times, which was just what Ozymandias wanted. It was late evening in the grounds of the de la Vallière estate. The buildings were heavily damaged and patched up, but Louise wasn’t paying much attention to that compared to the rather more pressing point of a dang monkey biting her arm.  
  
“Get off, you little bastard!” she yelled, slapping at the thing. Blood stained her dress. She slammed her arm into the ground until he let go and staggered backwards. She felt light-headed and she could feel her pulse in the bite.  
  
Ozymandias screeched monkeyish profanities at her, pulling out a belt knife that was more like a sword for him.  
  
“You made one mistake messing with me,” Louise growled, backing up for a good run-up. “I’ve been around minions for far too long now. And do you know what that means?”  
  
Ozymandias’ rude hand gesture indicated that there were certain things that he could not give _vis a vis_ what it meant. His expression changed, however, when Louise lunged forwards and her foot connected with him in a solid punt. He went flying and vanished into the purple rift.  
  
“It means I’m _really good_ at kicking minion-sized things,” Louise said, teeth clenched. “And good riddance.”  
  
Ooof. Her head spun. The air felt too thin. That was a bad sign. Combined with the way that her whole sleeve was red, she was losing unhealthy amounts of blood. Which, hah, her grandmother would have been very angry at her about. Very angry about. Ha. Ha ha. She needed to apologise to her father some time. It was a wonder he was as functional as he was if that was what his mother was like.   
  
For some reason, that seemed hilariously funny to her. Or possibly she was just crying. She wasn’t entirely sure. Founder, her family was so mucked up.  
  
Louise staggered over to the low wall, already considering what clothing she was wearing would make the best bandage, and sat down. She glanced over the other side and saw...  
  
… nothing. There was no ground there. Only clouds, and below that, a burning hellscape.  
  
“Um. Where has the ground gone?” Louise panted. She whirled, feeling light-headed. No, that was the de la Vallière estate behind her. It was usually on the nice and solid ground. Not in the sky. That was not a thing that it did, except occasionally when past family members turned it into a flying castle. But that hadn’t happened for at least fifty years. Forty, tops. She’d only seen it a few times in trying to find the right era.  
  
“Great,” she moaned, slumping down to look down over the hellscape below. The burning magma pits and screams of the damned echoed up. “I thought I was getting closer to twelve years ago. How far back is this?”  
  
“Uh… that’s a complicated question,” a very familiar voice said from behind her. “Because if now is when I think it is, the concept of time doesn’t apply.”  
  
Louise didn’t turn. “The spell can go to the future?” she said, feeling faint. Her knuckles whitened as she tensed up, clutching her arm to her chest.  
  
“Don’t you remember what Eleanore said?” the older woman said. “The spell shatters time. There is no past and future. There’s just now.” She paused. “Aren’t you going to turn around?”  
  
“I don’t know if I want to look.”  
  
“Surely you’ve seen worse in a mirror.”  
  
Louise turned around, and came face to face with herself. She swallowed. Looking at older-her wasn’t like looking in a mirror. Not at all. The future-Louise looked to be in her thirties, and was dressed like an sky-captain. A livid red scar barely missed her left eye. Her shirt was open at the neck, revealing both that Louise would manage to fill out more and also part of what looked like a sizable old burn. She was slightly taller than Louise, and her hair was cut short.  
  
“Let’s get the necessary things out of the way,” older-Louise said, sounding incredibly like their mother. “I’m thirty six. Yes, having children affects your bosom. Yes, that burn hurt. Don’t worry, the demon came out worse than I did. No, I’m not the overlady. Does that cover it?”  
  
Louise counted off the questions that had been bubbling up in her mind on her fingers. “What the hell happened here?”  
  
“Hell happened here.”  
  
“Helpful.”  
  
“Hello? What did you think happened? We’re a flying island above the Abyss.”  
  
“That’s… literally the Abyss down there?” Louise asked, stomach churning.  
  
“Mmm,” said her elder self. “Get away from the edge, and sit down. We need to talk. You’re bleeding and I can close that up and get that bandaged. And you look like you could do with a meal. Perhaps over some wine, stolen from the Queen of Hell.”

* * *

The food was largely hellish in origin. Louise suspected her future self was a sky-pirate - and a rather successful one, at that. Still, she ate all she could. She needed her strength and the last food had been… uh, probably canapes at the Abyssal banquet for the Cabal Awards. She continued eating with one arm, even as the other her rubbed an astringent potion into the injury, then professionally sewed and bandaged it up. The sewing hurt, but the older her kept her mind off the pain with the explanation as to what had happened to the world.  
  
“... and that about summarises it,” future-Louise said, downing the rest of her glass of wine. Louise watched with a fair amount of amazement. Her older self had a quite impressive tolerance for hell-wine. Louise had tried it in the Abyss and had felt tipsy after a single glass. “The world tore itself apart. Fragments of Halkeginia now float in the sky above the Abyss. I literally have no clue why it happened - and neither do the demons, either. It might have been some plan of that Hell-Queen bitch, but if it is, her underlings don’t know.”  
  
“They talk to you?”  
  
Future-Louise laughed humourlessly. “Eventually. But I also have some contacts with the Underworld - and with the elves. The pointy-eared bastards know something about this they’re not telling me. But they always act like that, so I haven’t been able to get anything out of them.”  
  
“Hmm.” Louise winced, moving the fingers in her left hand. They hurt, but she could still move them. Henrietta would need to look at her arm if… no, when she made it back home. “So I can’t stop it from happening except accidentally. You just don’t know enough.”  
  
“It really is jolly useless,” future-Louise said, nodding. “But at least you know it’s coming.” She paused and reconsidered. “Maybe. It might not happen at all. I think I’m probably not even a possibility from your point of view. I didn’t wind up in the future when Eleanore broke time and I don’t remember meeting me when I was you, which means that I’m not actually from the real timeline. Which is a bunch of bullsugar, but what can you do? Where and-or-when did you come from before you got here-and-now?”  
  
“Um,” said Louise. “Well, uh, that wretched thing attacked me when I wandered into. Um. Our grandmother being a horrible person. Did you know that Cattleya inherited her personality? And I don’t mean the ‘obsession with blood’ bits. I mean the bounciness and tendency to use words like ‘jolly’, ‘awfully’, and describing things as ‘adorable’. And the figure. Although she was blonde like Eleanore and father.” She scowled. “I’m pretty sure she wanted to kill me and bathe in my blood.”  
  
“My goodness,” said future-Louise. “That never happened to me. Did you stumble into Mother’s changing room when she was fifteen?”  
  
“... no?”  
  
“Be very glad you didn’t. I still have the scars.” The older version of Louise absent-mindedly rubbed her left arm, exactly where Louise had been bitten – and Founder, didn’t that open up possibilities she didn’t want to think about? “Anyway, as the princess of the Vallière Sky-Principality, I have my duties and my honour. I’m not sure what will happen to me when time reassembles, but I’m willing to not-exist if that’ll stop this future from happening.”  
  
“Wait, what? Principality?”  
  
Older-Louise massaged her neck. “Uh… it’s complicated. The power was vested in me by the Sky-Pope, though. And when Bruxelles fell… oh, right, uh. How to put this? Henrietta went a teeny tiny bit off the deep end fighting the Abyss.”  
  
“How teeny-tiny?”  
  
“She killed everyone in Bruxelles, reanimated their corpses as soldiers, bound their ghosts, and then crashed Bruxelles into Los Diablos to unleash her undead horde. She died, but that didn’t stop her from conquering about a quarter of the Underworld once she got there.”  
  
“Um.” Louise considered. “I’m not sure what to say.”  
  
“That’s… that’s about it. We still stay in touch, but even in the best light she’s a psychotic death-obsessed monster who rules the lands of the dead as a necrotic tyrant. Just… one who I’d prefer still thought of me as a friend, not least because it means she won’t try to murder me and bind me into friendship.”  
  
“Well. Um. I should also probably try to avoid that happening,” Louise said slowly.  
  
“That would be for the best.” Her older self looked her over. “Have you eaten enough? Are you feeling better?”  
  
“Don’t mother me. I’m you.” Louise paused. “Less hungry and thirsty. More nervous about the future.”  
  
“Good. Rely on your nerves. They’ll keep you alive. I wish I could help you more, but I can’t even see the time rifts. They don’t exist to me. You need to get going.”  
  
“Yes. I do.” Louise rose, taking a deep breath and heading over to the nearest fracture in this time. She worked her hand a few times, getting used to the pain that certain movements caused her. She was at the estate, so now it was just a question of heading back in time to the date she needed. Preferably not so early that she met her grandmother again.  
  
“Oh, and one word of advice?” future-Louise said, from her seat at the table.  
  
“Mmm?”  
  
“Don’t throw Eleanore down a time rift. You and me were able to climb back up to the present, but she cast the spell and Half-Eaten Chronos hates the caster. He took her. The books say she died instantly, from the perspective of everyone else. Not from her perspective.” There was an ancient look of pain in her older self’s eyes. “I killed both my sisters that day, and only one of them was easy to bring back.”  
  
Louise swallowed, breaking into a run. That had been her plan. “I’ll… I’ll bear that in mind," she snapped, nearing the purple-glow of the rift.  
  
“See that you do. Now, run! You’ve been here too long! You might be too la—”


	65. Realignment 12-5

“ _It is enough to ask somebody for his weapons without saying 'I want to kill you with them', because when you have his weapons in hand, you can satisfy your desire. How much better would it be to lay hands on my wretched half-brother’s weapons before he ever could snatch them up? Alas, my studies have revealed to me that meddling with the nature of days and hours will not get me the crown, and so I must take another path to secure it._ ”  
  
\- Louis de la Vallière, the Bloody Duke  


* * *

The red light of one of the moons shone in through the tall windows of the de la Vallière estate, casting the galleries and halls in a bloody hue. Long shadows draped themselves across floors and walls like grasping hands. The soft humming of a maid as she checked the doors on her way to bed faded into the distance.  
  
Two yellow eyes flickered to life in one of the shadows. Eleanore de la Vallière emerged, dark metal gauntlet at the ready. Carefully, delicately she eased her way up the stairs, avoiding the squeaky parts with long familiarity. She could make her way through her family home even without her glasses.  
  
She eased open her room’s door, and squeezed through the gap, carefully closing it behind her. Her sleeping chambers were just on the other side of this room. She couldn’t make a sound. Not until the moment came. And, well, after that it wouldn’t really make a difference.  
  
Would it hurt, she wondered? Would it be a simple, clean case of non-existence, or would she feel pain when she cut away her own past? Maybe she’d even last long enough for history to reassemble itself, and that’s when she’d vanish; when the world realised that she died when she was sixteen.  
  
Reaching out, Eleanore groped for the drawer where she’d always kept a spare pair of glasses. It was a necessary precaution, when your brat of a little sister would steal them because she thought it was funny. For a moment, Eleanore considered whether the world would be better off if she instead killed Louise. It was no surprise that a girl who used to reactivate some of the house’s old traps for her short-sighted elder sister to fall into would become an evil overlady. The malice ran deep.  
  
But no. That would be wrong, she thought as she slid the drawer open and reached in. She had her own misdeeds to right. Maybe without her, Louise would have more of a chance since Mother and Father wouldn’t be so distracted by Cattleya.  
  
Eleanore frowned as her fingers found only wood  
  
The drawer was empty.  
  
“Oh,” Eleanore said, a sudden coldness gripping her stomach. “Oh. Clever girl.”  
  
And then Louise hit her over the head with a hatstand.  
  
Eleanore clutched her head. Blood trickled down her face from cuts to her scalp. “The hell? Where did you come from?” she groaned. In the dim red light, her little sister was nearly invisible.  
  
“I’ve been here for hours! I came early! I was hiding in the closet!” Louise whispered triumphantly. “But now I don’t need to hide! I’m going to stop you, Eleanore!” She resisted the urge to rub her eyes. She’d nearly fallen asleep several times in the warm, comfortable wardrobe. But now her veins were filled with utter clarity of purpose. If only clarity of purpose was better at burning out the layers of fatigue.  
  
“For Founder’s sake, just keep it down!” Eleanore hissed at her. “Do you want to wake everyone up?”  
  
“I don’t care! At least it’ll stop you killing yourself!”  
  
Eleanore’s face snarled up into a mask of desperate agony. “Flames of the Sunken Abyss!” she hissed, flinching even as she cast the spell.  
  
A small black flame fizzled out of the end of the Gauntlet, and followed a sad parabolic arc down to the carpet.  
  
Hah! Eleanore must have drained her will casting the time-breaking spell. Now she could take her down silently and safely, using a spell like… um. Oh. Louise blanched, as she realised that the only Wind spell she had was lightning and there was really no way she could think of to make it non-lethal. “Wind Chains!” she announced, waving her wand around. “Oh, damn. It failed. I must be exhausted too.”  
  
“Idiot,” Eleanore said, sounding more like herself for once. “Wind Chains isn’t even a real spell.”  
  
“Y-you don’t know that!” Louise hefted the hatstand again. She swung it at Eleanore’s midsection, and missed, dropping the heavy wooden object as her injured arms gave way. Eleanore, half-blind without her glasses and this light closed in, and threw a tired punch that even Louise could step back from. The two sisters flailed pathetically at each other. They were both so exhausted that they barely had the strength to lift their arms, let alone cast spells.  
  
“Your dang monkey kicked me into the past!” Louise growled, uselessly slap-punching at Eleanore’s raised forearms. “Do you know how long it took for me to climb into the future? Far, far, far too long!”  
  
“I am trying to fix things,” Eleanore grated, falling into a bear-hug around Louise. “You are ruining everything. Stop being so loud, or else…”  
  
“What is going on here?” a crisp, sharp and distinctly Eleanore-ish voice demanded of the fighting siblings.  
  
The two of them turned their heads. On the other side of the room, a bespectacled, glasses-wearing Eleanore glared at the intruders, her wand raised. Through her open door, could be seen scattered weapons of a vampire-hunting inclination - stakes, crossbows, and various kinds of religious iconography.  
  
“Don’t worry, this is just a symbolic nightmare thing,” Louise blurted out before Eleanore-the-older could say a thing. “Um. I represent your good side and she’s your bad side. That’s why she has glowing eyes.”  
  
Eleanore-the-older turned red, insofar as any difference could be seen in the red-lit gloom. “You little—”  
  
“Choose good!” Louise quickly added. “Don’t let evil consume you, Eleanore! And don’t trust the lies of your dark side!”  
  
The younger Eleanore snorted, striding forwards. “Oh, please,” she said, reaching out to pull the fighters apart. “Like I believe-”  
  
Eleanore laid hands on Eleanore.

* * *

The world lurched.  
  
On the edge of the estate, a faintly sizzling line formed. On one side, things were as they had been. On the other side, the landscape flaked away to fall into the sea of time. And now, the moonlight shining in through the windows was no longer a dull red. It was now a sharp, brilliant purple.  
  
The moon blinked.

* * *

“What just happened?” younger-Eleanore asked, backing away. She looked around wildly, bed-mussed hair falling around her. “Why is everything purple?” She dashed to the window. “And why is the moon an eye?!”  
  
“Eleanore,” Louise hissed at the future version of her older sister. “Dang it. Remember Mother’s rules! Don’t ever touch your past self!”  
  
“She touched me!” older-Eleanore hissed back. “This isn’t my fault. It’s hers!”  
  
“She is you! I’m blaming both of you!”  
  
“Stop muttering, you two!” the younger Eleanore shouted from the window. “Why is the moon an eye? No one has explained this!”  
  
“I said this was all a dream,” said Louise. “It’s just a nightmare.”  
  
“I’m from the future and here to stop you,” older-Eleanore said at the same time. The two of them glared at each other.  
  
“Well, what is it?” demanded younger-Eleanore, hands on her hips. “One of you is lying!”  
  
“Actually, we could both be lying,” older-Eleanore pointed out, apparently unable to resist the urge to correct someone’s misaimed assumptions even if the incorrect person was herself.  
  
Younger-Eleanore bit back a comment. “Yes, fine. Both of you can’t be right. Is that better?”  
  
“Much better,” older-Eleanore said. “And I’m telling the truth. It’s Louise who’s lying.”  
  
“I am not!” Louise lied. “This is all a dream. Time travel doesn’t explain the moon turning into an eye, after all.”  
  
“Wait, that’s Louise?” younger-Eleanore said at the same time. “And that is true. Why would time travel turn the moon into an eye?”  
  
“It’s a paradox caused by you touching me,” the other Eleaonore said, straightening up. Her shoulders were hunched and she was bruised, beaten and exhausted - not just physically, but mentally and spiritually too.  
  
“Oh, sure, blame it on a paradox,” Louise said, thinking fast. The purple light outside the window was getting even brighter, which probably meant that reality itself was falling into the sea of time. That was bad. And it wasn’t just a time paradox. Louise had touched her elder self and that hadn’t destroyed everything. Maybe it was a specific thing that applied to the caster. “Sounds just like what a nightmare who doesn’t want Eleanore to wake up would say.”  
  
“Stop interfering!” older-Eleanore screamed at her.  
  
“I’m the good one here! You’re evil! You literally have your eyes glowing with evil! Everything you say is a lie!” Louise retorted.  
  
Tilting her head, younger-Eleanore considered her options. “That is a convincing argument,” she said.  
  
“No it’s not! I can’t believe I was ever stupid enough to fall for Louise lying to my face!”  
  
“She’s calling you stupid,” Louise said, stepping closer to the younger Eleanore. If there was one thing she knew about her sister, she hated that. “I don’t think she thinks very much of your intellectual capacity.”  
  
Eleanore-the older screamed and threw herself at Louise, knocking her to the ground. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” she yelled, bludgeoning Louise with wild punches.  
  
“No, both of you stop it!” Eleanore-the-younger snapped. “I’m trying to evaluate your claims here! That means you’re meant to wait until I pick one of you!” She stepped in, reaching out to pull them apart, and her hand brushed against Eleanore again.  
  
A purple crack zig-zagged through the air, propagating out from where she’d touched her elder self. The room itself split in two, tearing the fragments apart with dizzying speed. One half held the Eleanores - the other held Louise. And as she watched, the swiftly receding fracture containing the Eleanores disintegrated further. It was already sinking down through history, in a whirlpool of hours and minutes.  
  
And if Louise wasn’t very mistaken, the bottom of the whirlpool looked a lot like a maw. Future-Louise had told her that everything had gone wrong in her timeline when she had thrown Eleanore down a time rift - and that Half-Eaten Chronos hated the caster of the spell. The eye and the mouth were probably his. And were going after her sister.  
  
Well, she wasn’t going to let that happen.  
  
Louise took a deep breath. Time to put everything she’d learned in painfully climbing her way back up through history. It was how she’d managed to get here before Eleanore. She focussed on a time and place, staring out over the purple sea, and before her eyes a clock-stepping stone formed. She might only have one chance with this.  
  
“You owe me for this, Eleanore,” she whispered wearily, taking her first step.

* * *

The red light of one of the moons shone in through the tall windows of the de la Vallière estate, casting the galleries and halls in a bloody hue. Long shadows draped themselves across floors and walls like grasping hands. The soft humming of a maid as she checked the doors on her way to bed faded into the distance.  
  
Two yellow eyes flickered to life in one of the shadows. Eleanore de la Vallière emerged, dark metal gauntlet at the ready. Carefully, delicately she eased her way up the stairs, avoiding the squeaky parts with long familiarity. She could make her way through her family home even without her glasses.  
  
Unfortunately for her, this sixth sense only extended to things that were meant to be there. And she certainly wasn’t expecting someone to have reactivated the old trapdoors in the de la Vallière estate. She screamed out as she fell, but the trapdoor snapped shut behind her as she plummeted down the slide. When the housemaid came running, she put the mysterious scream in the night down to just another unexplained happening, and went to bed safe in the knowledge that at least one of the old ghosts had escaped the purge by the young Duke.  
  
This was no consolation to Eleanore, who was by then gagged, bound, and dangling by her ankles in one of the old hidden torture chambers. Her eyes glowed with uncontained rage as she glared at her little sister, who was leaning against the opposite wall with a smug expression on her face.  
  
“Mmmph mph mphou mpht mpheer mphrst,” snarled Eleanore, which translated to ‘How did you get here first?’  
  
“Oh, Elly,” Louise said, her grin widening. It covered the relief that she felt that this had actually worked out. “You haven’t fallen for this trap in years. Well, in the present you probably last fell for it a few weeks ago, but I haven’t done this since… oh, probably since I was six. Mother and Father eventually managed to strip out the systems I was using and scolded me into not doing it anymore.” She shook her head. “Lord and Founder, I was a little monster when I was younger. I suppose the evil force was even more potent in me, given that I was a six year old with far too much talent with the house’s old traps.”  
  
“Mphoor mphil amprat!”  
  
“I am not. I’m doing this for your own good. You don’t know what you’re doing. Trust me, it’s much better that I intercept you now rather than let you get through to the room and try to stop you there. Thank you, future pirate princess me.”  
  
“Mmphuh?”  
  
“No, I won’t explain.” She wasn’t going to tell Eleanore about that - not yet. The former overlady crossed her arms, and looked up at her big sister. “So I suppose you wonder what I’m going to do to you, now that you’re my captive.” She grinned, her cheeks rounded. “What horrible torments I’m going to inflict on you? Well there’s no need to worry. Because I’m going to do… _nothing_.”  
  
Eleanore made a concerned noise.  
  
“Why would I need to do anything?” Louise stepped forwards, until she was face to inverted face with Eleanore. “After all, you’re my captive now. You’re too exhausted to cast another spell… no, I _know_ you are. And tonight is the night that younger-you goes to try to kill the Bloody Duke. So I won’t do a thing. I’ll just keep you here until dawn, unless you tell me how to end the spell. And you’ll have _failed_.”  
  
From the panicked look in Eleanore’s glowing eyes, she took the threat seriously. Louise removed the gag.  
  
“You can’t do this! You can’t!”  
  
“Are you going to tell me how to end this spell?”  
  
“You have to let me do this! This is the only way to stop _mmmph mmph mpph_.”  
  
Louise stepped back and tried not to look too satisfied. Founder, it was cathartic to be able to gag Eleanore when she started talking. It was the kind of thing her younger self upstairs would kill to be able to do.  
  
“You’ll probably pass out from being held upside down in a bit, judging how things use to go when we were younger,” she said, with a false yawn. “Goodnight, Eleanore. I’ll see you in the morning.” Curling up on a pile of old bodybags, Louise closed her eyes, ignored her sister’s muffled protests, and pretended to be asleep.

* * *

Of course, she didn’t leave her like that for too long. The de la Vallière estate had several seminal works on the effects of suspending someone upside down for extended periods. There were pictures of the many ways that a man could die in such a position, along with recommendations of amusing twists to put on the whole affair.  
  
Louise, who didn’t want Eleanore to die but didn’t mind a bit of unpleasantness therefore lowered her down once she’d passed out. It took less than half an hour. She must have been exhausted. It was never so rapid when they were younger.  
  
Hmm. She probably should apologise for that.  
  
She squatted down, sitting on her haunches. The Gauntlet gleamed in the gloom. It wasn’t the same on her sister’s hand as when she wore it. But then again, it hadn’t had the form she was used to before she put it on the first time.  
  
Its dark power called to her. She wanted to say “No!”; to resist it, to stand strong. And she could do it. Even exhausted to the bone and desperately needing sleep, she could stand strong.  
  
But if she prevailed against its evil, what would happen to Eleanore? Louise felt very old. Her big sister, ten years older than her, was too fragile and too much of a mess to handle it. Louise thought that the Gauntlet and whatever evil that came with it didn’t introduce anything that wasn’t already there. She had a temper and wanted to prove herself - and so the Gauntlet turned it into fits of burning rage and drove her to stupid things to show everyone else they were wrong. And Eleanore… Eleanore wasn’t a happy person, and the darkness within had prompted her to try to erase herself from history as a self-sacrificing martyr.  
  
“Oh, Elly,” Louise said, brushing her hair with her fingers. “I didn’t know how much you struggled with the influence of the de la Vallière side. I suppose you’re old enough that you might have met grandmother and grandfather. No wonder you’re a wreck if you think you’re on the edge of turning out like them. If you can hear me, don’t worry about resembling grandmother. She’s actually,” Louise shuddered, “more like Cattleya than you. Or me.”  
  
For the first time, Eleanore wasn’t a towering figure of meanness and bullying and petty cruelties. Curled up in front of Louise, she looked very small and delicate. Reaching out, Louise traced her fingers along Eleanore’s jawline. They did have the same bone structure, after all, and everyone said she looked petite and adorable. Without the cutting aura of her-ness her sister usually radiated, they were more similar than - ha, than either of them had previously thought.  
  
Too much treacherous de la Vallière blood to be a proper hero. Too much of Mother to settle for being anything other than the best. Neither one thing nor the other; always torn between two worlds.  
  
As she saw it, there were two ways this could go. She could take the Gauntlet back off Eleanore and accepted the evil that came with it, this thing that was possibly the corrupted Void. She’d be back to how she lived her whole life, except now she’d be aware that it was the evil in her that fed the sulks, the sudden rages, and the inability to be honest with herself about how she felt about Henrietta.  
  
Or she could leave it with Eleanore, and in her current state her big sister would wind up dead soon enough, through some ill-fated suicidal attack or… or via some other way. She wasn’t a happy person. And Louise knew that the holy Void was said to pass down the royal bloodline. This corrupted Void would come and find her and she’d be the overlady anyway.  
  
Or it’d find Henrietta - and Louise doubted her friend, her love, would handle it any better than Eleanore. She was more than a little worried about the way that Henrietta was reaching towards necromancy, and the gauntlet would only make things worse. After all, future-her had said that Henrietta had murdered everyone in the capital, crashed it into the Abyss in a suicidal act of revenge and then taken over a big chunk of the Underworld. A mind like that couldn’t be let near the Gauntlet.  
  
Louise moaned, holding her head in her hands. No, no, no. Stupid logic. Stupid, stupid logic. She didn’t want to do this. But when she put it like that, there really wasn’t a choice at all. She’d have to become the overlady again - knowing that the evil power twisted her mind and the way she thought. Louise wiped her eyes, feeling them well up. It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t fair at all! She was _happy_ now. She could be the daughter Mother had always wanted her to be – and more crucially, she could be the woman she wanted to be.  
  
But no. Of course not. She had to give it up, after tasting a few short hours of how life could have been others. Dang it. Dang it all.  
  
At least she’d have the memories of this brief moment to remind her that she didn’t have to be evil. It… it would have to be enough. She hoped.  
  
With a deep breath, she reached out and eased the gauntlet off of Eleanore’s hand. And with just a hint of ceremony, she put it on.  
  
Dramatically, portentously, meaningfully… nothing happened.  
  
“Um,” Louise said, wagging her fingers. The gauntlet still looked like it looked when Eleanore wore it. And peeling back her sister’s eyelids, there was still a faint glow.  
  
A thought struck her. Oh. Of course. Just putting on a magic glove wouldn’t do a thing. This was evil she was talking about. She was willing to bet that the reason the power had passed from her to Eleanore was because she’d beaten her, and accepted the power. After all, it wasn’t like Louise had been a normal mage before she’d put it on for the first time.  
  
And it didn’t want to come back to her? Hah! How _dare_ it spite a de la Vallière like that!  
  
“Listen to me,” she said, voice low and intense. She didn’t speak to the gauntlet, but instead directed her glare at Eleanore. “I’ve beaten her. I’m _better_ than her. Look at what she tried to do with this power. She tried to kill herself in a very elaborate way. Me? I just defeated a dark goddess, just because they were in the way of my revenge on Montespan.  
  
She paused, and wet her lips. “Look at everything I’ve done already. And there are still two more people on the Council in my way. So either you leave Eleanore alone and come back to me, or I’ll go found the nearest volcano and throw the gauntlet in. I bet the forces of Evil won’t like that. And _then_ I’ll go to Mother and I’ll tell her everything.”  
  
Louise felt something dark and sinister pulse within Eleanore, matched by a second shift within the gauntlet. She smiled, a motion which had rather more displayed teeth than it should.  
  
“Oh yes. Yes, I will. I’ll tell her everything. I’ll tell her the Void is corrupted. I’ll tell her about the curse that the royal families carry because of that. And you know how she’ll react to that. I’ll be with her every step of the way. Listen to me, Void. You can either have me as your host, or you can have me as your enemy. You make the choice. Give me that power. Or else.”  
  
The creeping feeling of evil intensified. Eleanore contorted, heels drumming on the stone floor. She opened her mouth in a silent scream, something black and red and vaporous coming out in a sudden rush. It hung in the air for just a fraction of a second, before it darted to Louise and enveloped her.  
  
She screamed. She could feel it sinking into her skin, into her muscles, into her very bones. It burned and it froze all at once. Just for a moment she felt horribly, terribly _dirty_ \- and then the moment passed.  
  
The screams became hoarse laughter.  
  
Hair steaming, eyes burning a fierce pink, Louise smiled. There wasn’t much humour in her expression, though her face was flush with the warmth of victory. “Now _that’s_ more like it,” she said, clenching her fist in front of her face. The metal of the gauntlet gleamed in the light of her eyes.  
  
And she was angry. Downright furious at how much complete bull-sugar she’d been through today just to get this dang gauntlet back. She embraced her anger, pulled it in close and nursed it. Her hand sparked with bloody lightning; her nails burned with pink flame. The gauntlet pulsed in acknowledgement. Oh yes. Yes. It dang well knew who was in charge and it knew she was just about to smash the flip out of Eleanore’s stupid spell.  
  
Channelling her rage, Louise spoke a single word in the Dark Tongue.

* * *

The sun was rising over Amstrelredamme, shedding its light down on a smoking, ruined university.  
  
With a faint and vaguely anticlimactic pop, Louise and Eleanore re-appeared in the basement of the Grand Archives of the University. The ritual site burned a bright pink, and the great tome of Chronos Chronophage ignited, crumbling away into ash.  
  
“Did I do that?” Louise asked herself. “Um.” She looked around, just to make sure that no one had seen that happen. Well, it was probably for the best. At least no one else would be able to use that wicked spell in future.  
  
Cattleya’s skull contrived to stare accusingly at them, despite its lack of eyes. It sat beside the overlady’s helmet, which was going to need extensive work from Jessica to beat out the dents. Up overhead, she heard the distant sound of something collapsing. That was probably the minions. She should probably intervene, but all things considered they’d probably set the Grand Archives on fire already. After all, minions had been left unattended in the vicinity of a lot of paper. Even if they hadn’t meant to, some red had probably missed with a fireball.  
  
With a sigh, the overlady went looking for a broom to sweep up Cattleya. Hmm. She’d need to bring as much of her back as possible to make the resurrection as easy as she could make it. Maybe there was some kind of pot or urn down here. No, wait, that would be a terrible idea. Any pottery down here would be cursed, binding a demon, or otherwise a very bad idea to disturb. She could probably send the minions to steal something. Picking up Cattleya’s skull, she pondered it, making sure not to prick herself on the exposed fangs. “Well, I stopped Eleanore,” she told the skull. “And punched her quite a few times. And gagged her. So that’s something. Felt pretty good, honestly. But no, don’t glare at me like that.”  
  
The mouldering skull didn’t say anything. Eleanore stirred, groaning, and Louise flinched and hid the skull behind her back.  
  
“... little brat, I’ll get you for…” She blinked herself awake and groaned.  
  
“Welcome back to the present, Eleanore,” Louise said, in a cheerful tone which even sounded forced to her. She dropped the skull. “In conclusion, no, you’re not going to kill your past self. I’ve stopped you, and also destroyed the ritual. And I’ve taken this power back, because it’s really bad for you.”  
  
“Mmgh?” Slowly, Eleanore curled up onto a ball. A slow, wet sob escaped from her.  
  
“So, I know what I’m going to do. I’m heading back to my tower, and I’m going to finish what I started. That’s two members of the Council down, and only two more to go. But now there’s also the question of what I’m going to do with you.” Louise wished she’d had more time to think of this. The fatigue was biting in and she just wanted to collapse somewhere soft.  
  
“There’s no need to bother,” Eleanore said miserably. “I’m coming with you.”  
  
Louise blinked. “I beg your pardon?”  
  
Eleanore pulled herself upright; eyes bloodshot; dress tattered; fingernails torn. “So this is it,” she said in a raw, choked voice. “This is what I get. I spend ten years trying to make up for… for trying to do the right thing! Ten years of trying to be good, fighting my instincts every day, facing the contempt of people who assume that as the heir of the de la Vallière family I must be wicked to the bone. Ten years – and all for nothing. When my little sister embraced the dark heritage of our family and within a few years she’s slain the Bloody Duke and… and claimed our heritage in full. And I try to stop her and I find I’m just as pliable. Everything I tried… all for nothing.”  
  
“Eleanore…” Louise began, not unsympathetically.  
  
A tear trickled down her cheek. “Was I even ever good?” Eleanore groaned, shoulders shaking with sobs. “Or was I just seeking attention? Trying to get validation from Mother, trying to be more than just the de la Vallière spawn everyone said I was? I leaned on my pride and pride was all I had left… and now pride isn’t enough.”  
  
“Eleanore,” Louise said, this time more sharply.  
  
“Well, so be it! No more! No more futile attempts to be go—”  
  
Louise slapped her.  
  
“Ow!” Eleanore rubbed her reddened cheek, anger flickering back to life. “What was that for?”  
  
“You’re being stupid and emotional,” Louise said sharply.  
  
“I’m trying to join y—”  
  
Louise slapped her again.  
  
“Ow! Stop that!”  
  
“You are not joining me!” Louise fumed, raising her hand threateningly. “What you are going to do is to go home to Mother and Father and you’re going to keep yourself safe.”  
  
“No I’m not! I’m sick of being good! I want to embrace my dark heritage and... don’t hit me again!”  
  
“Then stop trying to join the forces of darkness!” Louise said, lowering her hand. She’d used her right hand, and thus it was stinging. If she’d used her left, Eleanore would probably be out cold again. “And you don’t want to embrace your dark heritage. You’re just having a breakdown. You’ll feel different in the morning, especially once you’ve had a meal and seen some sunlight.” Louise folded her arms. “Trust me. I’ve been trapped underground for months with no one to speak to but goblins. It leaves you a mess. Being locked up in jail is probably the same.”  
  
Eleanore blinked, clearly trying to fit the concept into her head. “But I want to rule over Tristain at your side?” she tried hesitantly.  
  
“Well, you’re out of luck if you’re joining me for that,” Louise stated. “That’s not the plan. I’m destroying the Council – especially Wardes, that lying treacherous cheating dog, oh yes I’m going to destroy him long and hard – and then Princess Henrietta is going to slay the Overlady of the North and escape a hero and rescue me and then she gets her name cleared. And I won’t have to wear clothes made of steel all the time and live in fear of assassins. Elly, you’re going home. Back to Mother and Father. You need to talk to them.”  
  
“No, I don’t.” Eleanore tried to square her jaw, and winced because aforementioned body part was stinging from repeated slaps.  
  
“Yes you do. Look, you just tried to erase yourself from history. You need to talk to someone, and Father is probably a lot more understanding about that than Mother. After all, he’s a de la Vallière by blood as well.” She considered how to say this tactfully. “I don’t want you dead,” she said awkwardly. “So you need to stay safe. And to have people who care about you around to look after you. And… look,” she glanced over at the pile of dust and fanged skull on the ground, “... Cattleya is going to be, um. Irked. Even if I wanted you at my side - and I don’t - I don’t want my big sisters killing each other. You can’t get better from that, unlike her.”  
  
She took a deep breath, and squatted down next to Eleanore. “And I need you alive and a hero,” she said. “Something bad is coming. Something very, very bad. When you broke time… Elly, I saw the future. Or a future, at least.”  
  
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Eleanore said. Despite her red-eyed, snotty state there was still a glimmer of alertness in her eyes. That had to be a good sign.  
  
“Neither do I. I met myself. She was thirty-six. The entire continent had torn itself apart. The estate was floating above the Abyss. Future-me said something had happened, that the world had torn itself apart. The Abyss is planning something big. Really, really big. Something we need to stop.”  
  
“You’re evil. Why are you trying to stop the Abyss?”  
  
“It’s… it’s complicated,” Louise said. “But if I’m evil, and I don’t think I am, I’m the kind that doesn’t want the world torn apart in a hellscape.” She leaned over, and gave Eleanore her hand. “So if you want something good to do, something that’ll help you redeem yourself for what you did this night… then I think I know what you can do. And I’ll help you with it.” She frowned. “When I can spare time from the Council, at least. But yes, an alliance of sisters.”  
  
“Mother would tell me to kill you on the spot.”  
  
“Yes, but there are two reasons why you’re not going to do that. Firstly, you’re too exhausted to do that,” Louise said. And like that, she knew she’d got Eleanore. If she actually did want to kill her, she’d have tried anyway. “And secondly, she’s not a de la Vallière. She doesn’t have our… certain _way_ of looking at the world. Mother would kill me here, but I don’t think Father would.”  
  
Eleanore considered things. And she smiled, a tiny, fleeting, weak smile. “No, I don’t think he would.”  
  
“And come on,” Louise said, wincing as she rubbed her puffy swollen eye, “it’s probably for the best. I mean, if the two of us spent time in the same place for too long, we’d probably try to kill each other. I mean, not like you and Catt, but we’d probably try to strangle each other. As sisters, but strangling is strangling.”  
  
“I… can’t argue with that,” Eleanore said hoarsely. She smiled, wincing from the pain. “We’re too similar for comfort, but too different to really understand one another.”  
  
“I was mostly thinking of how you’re just plain mean, honestly.”  
  
“And you’re a brat.”  
  
Pulling her sister upright, Louise helped her over to a bench. “So here’s what we’re going to do. As far as everyone else is concerned, tonight was the fault of the demon possessing Montespan. That basically discredits all the charges against you, so you’re going to go home - and yes, face Mother and Father. You need to make up with them. It’s been twelve years.”  
  
Eleanore winced. “I suppose it’s a form of penance,” she muttered to herself.  
  
“And another thing.” Louise took a deep breath, and walked over to the place where the ritual circle had been. She lifted up the cursed gem with her gauntleted hand. “You need to take this back to Father so he can put this in the secure vaults. I never want any chance of Athe or Baelogi getting out.”  
  
“You’re… not keeping it?”  
  
“I don’t want it. I don’t want any risk either of them will escape.” Louise wrestled with herself, trying to push aside the anger and cling onto the warmth and clarity she’d felt when she wasn’t the overlady. “And if you find Magdalene, she’s got Montespan’s body. If… if you’re… if you’re serious about finding a way of helping her, that’s… that’s something you can do.”  
  
“Louise, I…”  
  
“But only if you make sure she suffers from your full meanness for her own stupidity of getting stupidly possessed by a stupid demon!” Louise quickly added.  
  
Eleanore gave a shaky smile. “She locked me up for six months. That was always on the cards.”  
  
“Good. Good.” Louise dropped the gem with a clatter, and rushed forwards to hug Eleanore, burrowing her head into her shoulder. They both stunk of metal, sweat, and blood. “And d-don’t you dare get yourself into trouble again, Elly! I mean it!” she mumbled. “I’ll never f-forgive you if I have to go through all this again!”  
  
“I’ll never forgive myself if I have to be saved by you again,” Eleanore retorted, trying to sound arch and failing. “It’s… it’s n-not… I’d h-have managed things fine if you hadn’t nearly killed me with that punch!”  
  
Things rather degenerated into incoherent sobbing from thereon in. Eventually, they detached.  
  
“Awfully dusty down here,” Eleanore whispered, mopping at her eyes.  
  
“So much dust in the air,” Louise agreed, blowing her nose on her sleeve. “Well, I suppose I… I suppose I ought to sweep up Cattleya and gather the minions and get out of here.”  
  
“And I need to rest to get enough strength to make something to hold that jewel, then I need to find Françoise-Athenais and a horse and head home,” Eleanore agreed. “And Louise?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Rejoice, for it is the Silver Pentecost.”  
  
“Yes. Yes, I suppose it is.” Louise rubbed her eyes. “Next year, I hope it’ll be at home. Properly, I mean. Because there’s only two members of the Council left. I can get them done in a year, right?”

* * *

The snow falling on Bruxelles made the city for once look pure and clean. The duc de Richelieu looked out over his white city, nose wrinkling into a sneer. It just showed that you couldn’t trust appearances.  
  
“Do you recall our previous discussions on the topic of Françoise-Athenais, Jean-Jacques?” he said, without turning around. “I do believe I gave you certain suggestions with regards as to how to stop her womanly mind from being distracted. And now I discover that she was apparently possessed by a demon.” He whirled. “Did you not pay her any attention, or did you just not care?”  
  
Jean-Jacques de Wardes was sat by the fire, hunched over in a leather chair. The large glass of brandy in his hand was mostly empty, so he downed it and poured himself a new one before continuing. “I didn’t know,” he said hoarsely. “She seemed like herself.”  
  
“Oh, so you’re just an inobservant fool, not an utter incompetent,” said Richelieu, expression twisted into a sneer. “If you’d known and kept it from me, then I’d be calling you out for a duel right now. A demon could have been a useful ally.”  
  
Wardes said nothing, but merely took a mouthful of brandy.  
  
“Now because of your foolishness and her weakness, we have a scandal on our hands,” Richelieu continued. “Of all the damn fool things! You should have been more attentive in your masculine duties! If all she’d been thinking of had been your trouser saucisson, she wouldn’t had had time to think of getting involved with demons.”  
  
“I blame myself,” Wardes said, voice hollow.  
  
“That’s wonderful, because I blame you too. In fact, that’s what I’ve been doing; blaming you!” Richelieu thumped the wall. “And now we’re going to need to find someone new for the Regency Council who can handle Amstelredamme which is going to be a veritable powderkeg. They have to be someone intelligent and capable, but also someone who won’t have time to ask questions that we don’t want asked.  
  
He snapped his fingers. “I have it! Magdalene le Provost! She was always useful back in the day when she was one of your bevvy of beauties – and that idiot Montespan has completely ruined the chance of us calling on Eleanore de la Vallière. A shame.”  
  
“Magdalene’s married now,” Wardes said, taking another drink. “She’s van Delft now.”  
  
“Oh yes, and isn’t her husband one of our useful fools? Yes, that has real potential. She’s highly intelligent and capable – and hardly a puritan – but she’s a new mother and she’ll be worked off her feet handling Amstelredamme. Exactly what we need to hold down the fort while the plan moves into its latter stages.”  
  
Wardes looked conflicted. “Normally I would agree,” he said cautiously, “but do remember; she is a le Provost. She is from a de la Vallière cadet line.”  
  
“So? I consider that an advantage,” Richelieu snapped. “Before the current generation, the de la Vallière family were perfect examples of the nobility. Yes, they might have been rotten to the core, but they understood the virtues of _stability_. God, if I could replace all the ducal lines – save my own – with old school de la Vallières, I would! Certainly I’d get rid of the current lot. People ascribe too much importance to ‘good’ and ‘evil’. The de la Vallières were perfectly content to stay on their land, bathing in the blood of peasants and feuding with the von Zerbsts. And of course, they were so useful for suppressing the real threats to the Crown, like rebellious peasants. Heroes can be relied on to consistently stop portals to the Abyss, but they’re less trustworthy when the peasantry are getting uppity.”  
  
Running his fingers through his grey hair, Wardes sighed. “De la Vallière cadet lines are… pliable to the will of the main bloodline. I have mentioned this before.”  
  
“Then you can go find her a magical amulet or esoteric ritual or something else of that ilk that’ll stop that,” Richelieu said, his tone acidic. “If you really believe it’s a problem. And Magdalene is a tall, curvaceous beauty, so you should be able to keep your powder dry around her.”  
  
Wardes glared at him, but said nothing.  
  
“I shall handle this. If I left this in your hands, no doubt I’d come back to find my clerks possessed by demons. Rikkert! Rikkert!”  
  
A shambling, foul-smelling creature ambled through the door. “Yes, yer grace?” the cardinal’s manservant asked. “If that was me you were wanting.”  
  
“Of course it was, you buffoon! I was calling your name!”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“Prepare the coach! I need to go to the palace.”  
  
“Oooh, very nice, yer grace. Did you forget to give the queen her present?”  
  
Richelieu threw the poker at him. It bounced off his head. “Ow.”  
  
“No, you idiot! I have work to do!” He turned back to Wardes. “And as for you...”  
  
Wardes nodded. “When the weather clears, I’ll be heading to Albion. Our ‘friends’ will be moving this year, but I don’t trust them.”  
  
“Good. At least you haven’t forgotten our real plans. I’ll hold down the fort here. As for the mess of Amstrelredamme ,” Richelieu said thoughtfully, “there is an agent of mine who might be quite useful for this. One who serves a similar role to what you once did, in fact. I’m sure there are inconvenient facts in Amstrelredamme that could be made to vanish. Possibly by being eaten by a dragon.”

* * *

Upon the return of the overlady to her dismal dungeons, she retreated to her bedchambers, to brood on dark and unpleasant things.  
  
Louise slumped down on her bed, feeling awful. This wasn’t unusual. Except now she knew that all of the… most of the… well, at least some of the reason she felt awful was that the Evil in her was messing with her mind. It wasn’t all the Evil, of course - some of it was because she was bruised, battered, tired, and had just experienced probably the worst Silver Pentecost ever.  
  
But would she be feeling like this if she hadn’t taken the cursed metaphorical-mantle of the overlady back from Eleanore?  
  
Gnarl had been distinctly unhappy with her when she’d got back and handed him the swept-up remains of Cattleya for her to handle later while the minions took care of the copious amounts of loot from Amstrelredamme. She’d never seem him like that before. He’d been all but spitting in rage over how she’d neither corrupted nor killed Eleanore and had instead just set her free. She desperately hoped that her story about how she’d given her sister Montespan to spread chaos and undermine the Council had been believed. But even if it had, Gnarl would probably been watching her.  
  
“Corrupt or kill, your wickedness,” he’d said, knuckles white around his walking stick. “Corrupt heroes, or kill them. You should _never_ just leave them running around where they can get up to mischief!”  
  
She shook her head, trying to get his quietly furious voice out of her ears. She was exhausted to her very bones, but she couldn’t sleep. Her mind was too busy, buzzing with swirling thoughts until it almost felt like it could burst from the pressure.  
  
Pallas padded up her chest, and licked her from chin to brow. When Louise sat up and glared at the cat, she mewed and washed her ears. Her expression was an innocent as an angel’s, if the angel happened to be a cat and thus a sadistic little self-centred monster mostly interested in food, napping and petting.  
  
“Bleargh,” Louise muttered. “You little monster, are you nagging me for food?”  
  
“Mraw,” Pallas said wisely.  
  
Swinging her weary legs off her overly high bed, Louise swayed for a moment, grabbing onto the bedposts. “Well, come on, then,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “We’ll get you a snack and get me some wine or something to help me sleep. Warm milk, maybe.”  
  
By the time she had got halfway down the torch-lit corridors, she was very much regretting her decision. Not only was she exhausted enough to collapse, but Pallas was twining around her ankles and generally being a pest. And now she looked up, she had been in fact heading the wrong way in her confusion. The door in front of her was the door to Henrietta’s alleged jail cell, although in practice since Henrietta had the only key it wasn’t much use.  
  
Louise swallowed. She still remembered the easy simplicity of… of being so free with her feelings. How everything had seemed so simple. How she had so casually declared she’d just tell Henrietta how she felt.  
  
She repressed a giggle. Maybe the tiredness was making her sleep-drunk. Because she felt like she could maybe say it to her.  
  
… and if she couldn’t, she could just collapse on her bed, which would be easier than walking all the way back to her own bedroom. Pallas had vanished, treacherously realising that there wasn’t going to be any food here, Louise noted.  
  
She took a deep breath, and raised her hand to knock on Henrietta’s door.  
  
Then she shuffled away and hid, until she stopped hyperventilating. She could do this! She had to! She’d fought a literal dark god! Telling a girl how she felt about her was nothing!  
  
Louise knocked on Henrietta’s door.  
  
“Coming!” Henrietta called out. She opened it, and Louise laid eyes on her best friend, who was clearly in the process of preparing for bed. Her hair was loose, and she wore a black chemise and bloomers. A faint smell of iron wafted out of the room, but Louise ignored it. “Oh, Louise-Françoise, I’m so glad to see you.”  
  
Louise’s heart swelled with warmth. Yes! She could do this. She could almost feel the warmth radiating off Henrietta. She just had to say the words, through a suddenly bone dry mouth. “Henrietta,” she croaked.  
  
“Excellent news, Louise-Françoise!” Henrietta said brightly. “I got to talking with that Albionese overlady - a half-elf, if you can believe it! So evil! - and I believe I’ve found something useful for us!”  
  
“I… I…” Louise wet her mouth. “I’ve been thinking about us and…”  
  
“So have I! It’ll serve us very well! Well, you know, Tiffania is fighting against the Albionese Republicans - the ones who murdered my sweet love - and that automatically makes her our friend. But she wants to talk about a treaty between us so we can focus on ruining both the Council and the Republican government!” Henrietta clasped her hands to her chest. “And then! Just think! They executed my love, but we can recover his body. Louise-Françoise, I can _bring him back_.”  
  
“Oh,” said Louise. “Oh.” Her shoulders slumped. “I see.” She looked at Henrietta, so happy and gleeful and… and vivacious and pretty and in love with someone else. Her eyes blurred. “I’m… so happy for you,” she managed, before the exhaustion overcame her and she sagged down into the kind waters of unconsciousness.  
  
Her last sight before sleep claimed her was a decidedly déshabillé Henrietta kneeling over her, almost overflowing her chemise, which seemed very unfair.


	66. A Winter's Heroic Interlude In Three Parts - Red

**A Winter’s Heroic Interlude In Three Parts  
  
Part 1 – Red**

* * *

A coach carrying the von Zerbst family made its way along a narrow snow-choked road, under the light of the twin moons. It was followed by a coach carrying more of the von Zerbst family, then another coach which carried the family members who couldn’t fit into the first two vehicles.  
  
Kirche sighed, and stared out of the window at the flakes of snow drifting down from the sky. The de la Vallière estate was painted white by the weather. Ice choked the fishing lakes, while the tall and narrow pine trees creaked under the weight of their snow-laden boughs.  
  
The markgraf thought it wise to keep up with the neighbours, officially because they were ancestral foes but mostly because he wanted to brag to the duchess of the de la Vallières about certain accomplishments of his in the past year. Of course, unfortunately that meant he had to stay still in a closed space for extended periods, and his patience was wearing thin.  
  
Kirche, for her part, was trying to ignore her father’s leg-tapping and occasional bellows of “Are we there yet?” at the coachman.  
  
“Don’t ruffle your velvet, and sit still, my love,” said his wife.  
  
“No one tells me what to do, woman!” Blitzhart snapped reflexively, but he complied.  
  
“And Kirche, dear, could you look a teeny weeny little bit less bored? I know you’d rather be out doing… rough and tumble things, but family is important.”  
  
“Yeah, Kirche,” Lucien sneered.  
  
“Luci, sweetie, be nice to your older,” she glanced quickly at her sullen husband, “sibling.”  
  
Francesca Juliet Helen Georgia Phosphene von Zerbst had to be at least forty, but only the faintest lines on her brow marked the passage of the years. Her mass of pale blonde hair was pinned up in an elegant hairstyle, while her dress was a little risque for a woman her age but clearly pleased her husband. Once again, she was heavily pregnant. Kirche was darkly sure that her family would have been bankrupted by how many children her parents had were it not for the von Zerbst fortune born of generations of heroic looting. And her mother had been wealthy before her marriage too.  
  
Many people had wondered what kind of a person could capture Blitzhart von Zerbst in holy matrimony. As it turned out, it had taken one of the great beauties of Germania, aided amply by her status as a massively wealthy heiress who had inherited the fortune left to her by her demon-murdered family. Blitzhart had rescued her from the Abyss itself after she was snatched away by the force of darkness, wedding bells had rung out, and Kirche had been born six months later. She was a reclusive and shy woman who spent much of her time on pilgrimage, overshadowed entirely by her irrepressible husband and sizable brood of rambunctious children.  
  
“Oh!” Kirche said suddenly. “We’re just coming up to the ravine with the giant skull carved into the walls. We’re nearly there, father!”  
  
“What? We’re already past the ruins of the Fortress of Impaling?”  
  
“I must have missed it in the snow. That, or the de la Vallières have finally got around to removing the spikes.”  
  
And indeed, it was only a few minutes before the convoy of coaches was pulling up in front of the estate. Golden light streamed out of the lit windows, though most of the complex was dark. Blitzhart burst out of the coach, nearly tearing the door from the hinges, and dashed up to the door, hammering on it with one meaty fist.  
  
“Oi, dukey! Let us in! It’s bloody freezing out here.”  
  
“Help your mother out of the coach, my darling,” Kirche’s mother commanded her. “And then, if you wouldn’t mind, herd up the others. And do try to stop anyone from running off.”  
  
It took some corralling of little red-haired hellions and the occasional levitation spell, but eventually the von Zerbsts were assembled. The grand doors to the de la Vallière household swung open, with an exaggerated creak.  
  
A tall figure was standing in the shadows. His monocle somehow caught the light, reflecting it even as the rest of his face was shaded. His high-collared mantle was of an archaic cut; his blond hair was elegantly cut, yet the product of an older time.  
  
“Welcome to my household,” he said in a soft voice that seemed like it should have come from a much smaller man. “Please, come in and-”  
  
“Ah, Centurion, you old dog! I see your moustache is still growing! Bet your wife likes it - and she’d like it more if it was as big as mine! Rrrrawwrr!”  
  
Stepping out of the shadows, the duke’s moustache twitched. “Blitzhart,” he said flatly.  
  
“That’s my name! And you all know what my game is! Rrrawrr! Good to see you, my man! I see that stick up your butt is still poking into your tonsils!” He stepped up to the duke, offering his hand, but when he went to take it Blitzhart reached around to slap him on the bottom. “And you haven’t let yourself go! Always knew you were a tight-arse! Great thing for a rival! Not an arch-rival, of course - that’s your wife! Where is the lethal lady herself, anyway?!”  
  
A little muscle under the duke’s right eye spasmed. “My beloved wife was feeling a little shut-in from the weather. When news of a giant squid on the north coast came in, she decided to get out of the house. She should be back soon.”  
  
“A squid! What the blazes! Why didn’t anyone tell me this! I might be able to make it,” Blitzhart said, checking his pocket watch. He turned on his heel, and was about to march out the door when his wife caught his sleeve.  
  
“Dear,” Francesca said. “You’ll miss the meal, and I doubt you could make it there before dear sweet Karina kills a mere squid.”  
  
“That’s true, but…”  
  
“I dare say it’s not even a worthy enemy for you. Not worth going out in the cold for,” she pressed.  
  
“Quite so,” the duke said. “I dare say Karina will be back soon enough, when she’s let off a little steam, but my daughter will be taking her place.”  
  
“Ha! So your sickly little girl has got well enough to attend one of our dinners! Good to hear that! I hear rumours she’s quite the beauty and is unmarried! Rrawrrr!”  
  
The duke’s eye muscle twitched again. “Not that daughter. I m-”  
  
“What, you mean she’s turned up? What’s her name, Kirche? Your rival!”  
  
“Louise?” Kirche asked, shocked.  
  
“No,” the duke said, mouth a thin line. “I mean Eleanore.”  
  
“Oh.” Blitzhart looked momentarily nonplussed. “Are you feeling well, old chap? Do you remember what happened last time she was allowed to host a dinner?”  
  
“I do. Lord and Founder, I do. But I’ve talked with her and she’s promised that she’s not planning to run anyone through in a duel.”  
  
“Ha! She can duel me any time she likes! I’d run...”  
  
“Yes, yes,” the duke said tetchily, before the inevitable innuendo made its appearance; doubly so because it would be about his eldest daughter. “Why don’t you come inside?”  
  
“I’d love to!” Francesca said with a tinkling laugh. “The weather has been so awful recently! I hate it when it’s this cold! I’m so prone to catching chills! I nearly was too ill to travel, and I’ve just had this cough that wouldn’t clear until I went to pray in Roma. And on top of that I’m pregnant again which is leaving me tired all the time and…”  
  
Kirche sighed, and wished she had earplugs. Spending time around her mother was literally hellish, or at least figuratively literally hellish. Why couldn’t she be in Amstelredamme like the others, rather than being caught between de la Vallières on one side and her mother’s stream-of-consciousness chatter on the other?

* * *

“Thank God for me!” Blitzhart slammed his hand down on the table, roaring with laughter. “And don’t you just know it, that’s what the nun said!”  
  
This dining hall was much warmer than the coaches, and whatever legendary feasts of the blood of the living that may hypothetically have occurred here in the past were long forgotten. The von Zerbst side of the table was packed, with the smaller children needing to be put on a secondary table due to lack of space. By contrast, the de la Vallière side of the grand table had only two people sitting there, and they were slightly further apart from one another than was traditional.  
  
Blitzhart was enjoying the aperitifs, even if they were meant to be drunk from rather smaller drinking vessels than the one he was using. He certainly hadn’t noticed the tensions on the other side of the table, but Kirche had. She decided that the de la Vallières were like cats. That is to say, they were a bunch of vicious killers who just happened to be good at looking pretty and so people let them into their homes. Admittedly that had been after a study of her family’s history books and Louise de la Vallière had comprehensively failed to live up to the whole ‘vicious killer’ thing when they had actually met, but she had made up for it in being small, cute, and utterly ridiculous while not quite realising how silly she was. And also getting very angry when she got caught in a sudden rainstorm.  
  
What had happened to her was such a shame.  
  
“How is little Cattleya doing?” Francesca asked, conversationally. “I haven’t seen her in so long. Why not invite her down for drinks, at least? Surely that would be pleasant, even if she doesn’t drink wine.”  
  
“Cattleya is on a constitutional trip to Romalia, for the sake of her health,” the duke said, without blinking. “She gets so cold in winter with her poor circulation, and so close to the Great North Sea the winds are too damp for her.”  
  
“I was in Romalia this summer,” Kirche agreed. “Someone we rescued let us stay in his villa for a few weeks. It was very relaxing, right until a mountain nearly tore itself apart.”  
  
“That’s one way of putting it,” Danny muttered from further down the table. To his disgust, he was sitting with the younger children and had only been allowed apple juice. He was sulking.  
  
“Oh yes. I just hate it when a mountain tears itself apart,” the woman sitting opposite to Kirche drawled. Kirche glared at her. Eleanore de la Vallière stared back, eyes hidden by the light reflecting off her spectacles. Her lips were quirked up in a tiny smug smile, although Kirche was of the opinion that that was just her default expression. Eleanore was far less amusing than her youngest sister. She was eight years older than Kirche, and probably hadn’t even had a single evil step-sibling try to murder her for inheritance.  
  
“Something you wanted to say?” Eleanore said, a slightly sardonic note in her voice. “You looked like you were about to expand on the topic. Perhaps you were going to contribute to your father’s marvellous and fascinating tales?”  
  
“Eleanore…” the duke said warningly.  
  
“Oh, no, I’m being quite honest here. I haven’t heard stories like that in years. I had thought that the giant sandsnakes of the Rub’ al Khali were quite gone. A few years back, I was part of an expedition that touched the very edge of elven lands looking for them. There wasn’t a trace. Some thought they were extinct.”  
  
“Ha! They are now! I guess you just weren’t trying hard enough to find them!” Blitzhart bellowed. “Count another point for me! Hurrah!” His cheer was matched by a cheer from his many children.  
  
“My goodness,” Eleanore said softly, one eyebrow raising. “And what of you, Kirche? What have you done recently? What glorious stories of heroism are you bringing here to this winter feast?”  
  
Kirche sat back in her chair, wineglass held in one hand. She resisted the urge to down it, even though she was feeling far too sober to be dealing with a de la Vallière quite as catty as this one. “Oh, you know,” she said, deliberately slowly. “One thing and the next. Saving a Gallian duc, killing an evil cardinal in Romalia…”  
  
“And there was that man who was way too fond of bears! Me and Guiche killed him!” Danny chipped in from down the table. “Then the land tore itself apart and we saw the Abyss!”  
  
Eleanore played with her napkin, carefully pleating the edge. “You’ve become quite the little hero,” she said to Kirche. “We should talk after the meal. Share some stories, and the like. I did the same when I was at the Academy. I would be fascinated to hear from a first-hand experience of one of these Abyssal rifts. My knowledge of them is sadly limited, but I fear the forces of Darkness may be plotting.”  
  
“Could we _please_ not have such talk when we’re soon to be eating?” Francesca asked, looking queasy.  
  
“Do you really think the constant and ever-present threat of the Abyss will disappear if we pretend it doesn’t exist?” Eleanore demanded, leaning forwards.  
  
“I just think that so much blood and guts is the sort of thing that—”  
  
“Harumph. No, I think now is a perfectly good time to discuss such things.”  
  
“Eleanore!” the duke said sharply.  
  
With an obvious sign of effort, Eleanore bit back whatever she was about to say next. “I do so apologise for my manners,” she said, her tone sickly sweet. “It was so… unfeminine of me.”  
  
“Ha! Keep on acting like that, then!” Blitzhart said, raising his pitcher of fine white wine. “Good girl you’ve got there, Centy! Be better if she was a boy, but she’s trying her best with her female limitations! Not as good as Kirche, though! That’s m’boy!”  
  
Eleanore opened her mouth, eyes flashing.  
  
“No,” said the duke.  
  
“But…” Eleanore began.  
  
“No.”

* * *

As Kirche was a well-known hero of repute, she always kept an eye out for people planning things at dinners and parties. The last thing she wanted was to get locked in another mansion trying to find which of the guests had murdered their host with a dagger in the library. Last time that’d happened they’d never caught the suspect, even though Tabitha had been trying her hardest to help them.  
  
And so of course she noticed the de la Vallières sneaking off and followed them. What else was she meant to do? Kneeling down, she pressed her ear to the locked door to listen.  
  
“Founder,” Eleanore groaned, her voice muffled through the door. “Why did I subject myself to this? That was just the aperitifs. There’s six courses of him to go.”  
  
“You subjected yourself to this by arguing with your mother as soon as you arrived home,” the duke said, barely audible.  
  
“I had good reason! She-”  
  
“You have no one to blame for this but yourself. You are my eldest daughter, and part of that means you are obliged to maintain your family’s position. You are going to sit through all of this without insulting him. No matter how much you want to.” He sighed. “I certainly want to, sometimes.”  
  
“You?”  
  
“I understand he’s a bore, a pig, and not half as funny as he thinks he is. He still calls me Centurion, and I haven’t used that nomme de guerre in decades,” the duke said wearily. “He is a very trying man. But you will be duchess someday, Eleanore, and part of being duchess is putting up with trying people without running them through or having their lands sacked and their peasants impaled.”  
  
“I am trying,” Eleanore said more softly. “I really am.”  
  
“Yes, I do see that. I’ve known you are a trying girl for years. Unfortunately, he’s very trying too.”  
  
Eleanore’s sigh was audible even from the door. “Really, father?”  
  
“If you feed me such a line, how can I resist?”  
  
“Please do.”  
  
“But just think of it this way - only a few more hours of Blitzhart, and then we won’t have to see any of him for months. At least you’re here to commiserate with. Your mother finds him amusing, God only knows why. Possibly a mild case of hearing damage from overuse of lightning magic, so he isn’t quite so loud for her.”  
  
“Mother is… Mother.” Eleanore paused. “Father, I do believe that he needs to know about…”  
  
“No. I need to think about how we’re going to address it. It may be a ploy by the forces of Darkness. He’s a loose cannon. And easily manipulated if you present a nice obvious threat in the opposite direction, or a pretty woman. With the sensitive political situation here - especially with the revelation that little Francoise-Athenais was possessed by a dark angel - this may be a plan by the overlady to throw Tristain into further chaos by having him rampage around like a drunken bull.”  
  
“But…”  
  
“Kirche!” Her mother had somehow crept up on her while she was focussing on the de la Vallières, and was glaring down at her, looking very disappointed. “What are you doing?”  
  
“Shhh,” Kirche whispered, finger to her lips. “I’m listening in at the door.”  
  
“Well, I never!” Francesca said, pulling her by the arm. “That is so ill-mannered, darling!”  
  
“Pfft. I’m just doing what Dad does.”  
  
Francesca sighed wearily. “Kirche, darling,” she said, “you are being very difficult. Can you at least please try to be a little more polite? I do realise that your father sets a certain example to you, but could you try to be more lady-like? Like me, perhaps?”  
  
Kirche’s eyes hardened, but she forced herself to smile. “Why, I quite apologise for my behaviour, mother,” she said floridly. “I am quite beside myself with shame.”  
  
“Kirche! Such manners ill befit you!” Her mother’s lip wobbled, even as she pulled Kirche away from the interesting conversation on the other side of the door. “There is no need to act like that disgusting de la Vallière girl just because we are in their household.”  
  
That was hurtful. “I am not acting like her!”  
  
“Oh yes you are. De la Vallière woman have no respect for what should be done. They’re so rude. Why, I remember her grandmother.”  
  
Kirche blinked. “Wait, what?”  
  
“Oh, darling, did I not tell you this story? When I was much younger, she dragged me from my home and imprisoned me. She had some frightfully wicked plan to drain all my blood and steal my life energy and use it to become immortal. Fortunately, a young heroic knight was also imprisoned along with me, and he managed to fight his way out and free me.”  
  
“Wait, that was how you met Dad?”  
  
Francesca laughed. “Oh, my, no. Darling, lots of men used to try to imprison me before I met your father. It’s one of the dangers of being an heiress. This was before all that.” She sighed. “It was a shame what happened to that poor boy. I might have married him instead of your father, but that de la Vallière woman had stolen most of his blood and he died in my arms not long after we escaped.”  
  
Straightening up, Kirche looked down at her mother. “I’m an heiress and I don’t get kidnapped.”  
  
“That would be because of your father’s influence, sweetie. That and the fact that much of Germania thinks you’re a boy and so doesn’t think to try to imprison you. But your father’s wishes for you are a jail even more confining than any prison. I wish you could live as you’re meant to be, darling, I really do. You’re not meant to be trapped by his expectations. Someday I hope you’ll see that.”  
  
Yanking her hand free, Kirche took a deep breath. “I’ve told you a thousand times before. I don’t _want_ that. I’d prefer that people think I’m a man than be reduced to some… some fainting lambling who, like, sits around waiting to be rescued. Well, fuck that. I’d rather live in Dad’s expectations than yours.”  
  
“You don’t respect me,” Francesca said in a tiny voice. Kirche didn’t reply, but her expression said everything. “You don’t need to be so coarse or try to act like a man to earn respect. There are more feminine ways of influencing people.”  
  
Kirche snorted. “What, sitting around hoping to be married well? Being the trophy of some man much older than me? Oh, or being taken captive by some villain and hoping you get on well with whatever muscled thug rescues you?”  
  
“It worked out for me and your father.”  
  
“That’s you. Not me.” Kirche turned on her heel and walked back to the light and noise of the main hall, leaving her mother standing in her shadow.

* * *

The meal at the de la Vallière estate was excellent, even if the von Zerbsts present were contractually obliged to feel that it was not as good as they got at home. After that, the gentlemen, Kirche included, retreated to the Duke’s reading room to talk about manly things. However, for some reason the Duke de la Vallière seemed somewhat unwilling to do that with her around and thus most of the conversation consisted of Blitzhart’s complaining that Karin still wasn’t back and his bragging.  
  
Kirche was occupied with maintaining an expression of rapt fascination as her father went on about a dragon he’d taken down - “You should have seen what she looked like in human form! Didn’t believe in human clothing, rrrawrrr!” - when she felt her belt purse shudder. Something inside it was moving, as if it was a living thing.  
  
“Excuse me. I just need a breath of fresh air,” she said brightly.  
  
“Oh yes, feel free, please do,” the duke said quickly. His expression was more than a little mortified.  
  
Shaking her head, Kirche stepped outside. Tristainians were a repressed people. Louise must’ve got her more-than-usual levels of repression from her father. She paced down dark corridors until she felt she was far enough away from any listeners. The tapestries on the walls depicted de la Vallières impaling peasants on spikes, while bloodless aristocrats sneered down from the paintings on the walls.  
  
Reaching into her belt purse, she pulled out a small hand-mirror about the size of her palm, and flipped it open. Cupping it in her hand, she traced an occult symbol on the front. The surface of the mirror ceased to reflect her own face. Instead, Izah’belya stared out of it. “Well, honestly,” she said tetchily. “It took you ages to pick up.”  
  
“I was busy,” Kirche told her evil demonic succubus half-sister. Despite the rather substantial moral difference between them, the two had found they actually got on very well once Izah’belya had reached out to her. Yes, Kirche was fairly sure she was trying to corrupt her and had only made contact for that purpose, but in her defence Kirche had her eyes set on redeeming her half-sister and wasn’t prepared to lose to her. Turn-around was fair play, after all.  
  
“Where are you? Unholy cow, I’ve never got a signal as strong to the surface world! You must be close to a force of terrible and maleficent Evil!”  
  
Kirche frowned. “No. We’re just on a family trip to see the neighbours. What could be…” She slapped herself in the forehead as she realised how stupid she was being. “Oh. Right. The neighbours are the de la Vallières, and I’m on their estate right now.”  
  
Izah’belya paled, smiling nervously. “The de la Vallières… if you’re busy, I can go.” She swallowed. “I don’t want the Karin finding out about this. I heard that she can smell fear – and that it smells like chocolate to her.”  
  
“Nah, she’s actually pretty nice,” Kirche said with a shrug. “A bit proper, but she’s totally more normal than Dad. Who, uh, considers her to be his arch-rival.” She caught the stare that her half-sister was directing at her. “Don’t look at me like I’m crazy. One of the advantages of not being an evil demon is the fact that you can talk to Karina de la Vallière without her trying to kill you. Plus, she’s not even here right now. She’s off killing a giant squid on the coastline.”  
  
“Oh, thank the dark gods,” Izah’belya breathed. “So, uh. Merry Silver Pentagram, by the way.”  
  
“Silver Pentacle.”  
  
“Silver Pentagram. I got you a present, foolish hero, but you’ll need to come to my lair to embrace the gifts of Hell.”  
  
Kirche shook her head. “Nuh uh. I got you a present too, vile demon. But you’re not getting it unless you meet me on sacred ground to repent your sins.”  
  
With a sigh, Izah’belya ran her hands through her hair. “Whatever. Fine. Let’s just do lunch around the New Year and we can hand things over.”  
  
“That’s good for me,” Kirche agreed. “Is that all?”  
  
“No, I… look. Let’s cut the crap and just be open with each other. I know it’s against both of our religions, but it’ll be over way quicker if we don’t have to stop and, like, call each other ‘vile demon’ or ‘wretched hero’ and that reduces the chance of the Karin coming back unexpectedly.” Izah’belya’s image took a deep breath. “What do you know about what happened in Amstelredamme?”  
  
That was a shock. “Why are you asking me? That was the forces of Evil.”  
  
“Yes, but it wasn’t my subset of the forces of Evil and no one seems to know exactly what went on. Plus, rumours are going on that a mysterious unicorn-riding heroine showed up and slew Baelogji after she betrayed and stole the power of Athe the Disbeliever. Know anything about that?”  
  
Leaning against the wall, Kirche considered what to say. She decided honesty was best. She didn’t trust that her half-sister was telling the truth, but she didn’t exactly have much to be honest about. “I’m running off rumours too. I would be there right now, but this family thing came up.”  
  
“Bless it. I was hoping you knew something. This whole business is causing widespread instability in the dark futures market. I’m having to work over the Silver Pentagram when I should be on vacation. Oh well, at least Mother isn’t forcing all of us to attend one of her parties.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“They’re so dull and traditional.”  
  
Kirche nodded sympathetically. “I know the feeling. I sometimes think Mother got our Silver Pentacle gatherings out of a book about the Hundred Most Boring Family Gatherings.”  
  
“I know! Orgies and the ravening theft of the souls of mortal cultists are, like, so played out!”  
  
She had to work one step at a time, Kirche reminded herself. She couldn’t expect her evil succubus half-sister to make redemption easy. If the road to the Abyss was paved with good intentions, that meant that the road _from_ the Abyss was also paved with good intentions and so good intentions could get you going in either direction. And since Izah’belya was already a denizen of the deepest pits of the Realms Infernal…  
  
“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “We can meet up and exchange our gifts in a month or so. And then we’ll share everything we can find out about what happened in Amstelredamme.”  
  
“Hmm. Sounds pretty bad to me. Anyway, call me when you’re away from the de la Vallière place. They’re a dangerous family and either way I don’t want them knowing you’re talking to me.”  
  
“Got it. Yeah, that wouldn’t be helpful. Talk with you later, then.” Kirche touched the magic mirror again, and put it away in her pouch.  
  
“What wouldn’t be helpful?” a very smug voice said from directly behind her.  
  
Kirche whirled, a fireball dancing at the tip of her raised wand. In the long shadows behind her, a pair of spectacles reflected the light. Breathing heavily, she lowered her wand, but didn’t put it away. “You shouldn’t be here.”  
  
“In my own house?” Eleanore stepped forward. “Possession of Abyssal artefacts like that mirror of yours is forbidden by Church law and civil law alike.”  
  
“Possession of _unsanctified_ artefacts,” Kirche countered. “I dunked it in holy water, dried it out in salt, and had a priest bless it.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yes!” She might not have told the priest what it was that he was blessing, but she certainly had it blessed. And what did it matter that the dropping in holy water had been an accident? “And what are you doing here?”  
  
“When people skulk around listening at doors, I get very curious indeed.” Eleanore crossed her arms. “You and your mother made quite a noise outside the door.”  
  
“That was her fault,” Kirche said, pulling a face. “I was listening fine before that.”  
  
“... no apologies?”  
  
“What for?”  
  
Eleanore sniffed haughtily. “Just what I’d expect of your family.” She looked down her nose at Kirche, a gesture which was slightly handicapped by how the younger woman was taller than her. “And now you’re looking for information on what happened in Amstelredamme. On the behalf of a demon, I might add.”  
  
“I think she knows more about what happened there than I do, and if we know what the Abyss was planning there, we can stop them!”  
  
“Hmm.” Eleanore took another step forwards and adjusted her thick glasses. “Perhaps we can make a deal of our own.”  
  
“Hey, Kirche, what’s…” Danny turned the corner. “What’re you two doing all the way back here in the dark?”  
  
“Run along, child,” Eleanore said, making shooing motions. “The grown-ups are talking.”  
  
“No, stay,” Kirche said out of pure contrary spite. Danny stuck his tongue out at Eleanore. “What would I need from you?”  
  
“Temper, temper. I was in Amstelredamme. I know a lot more about what happened there than you do. You should probably treat me nicely if you want to know about what happened there.”  
  
“You were there?” Danny asked enthusiastically, scooting up close. “What went on? I heard the Madame de Montespan got dragged away by demons and they ate her and crunched up her bones!”  
  
“Weren’t you in jail?” Kirche asked bluntly, ignoring her brother’s enthusiastic imagination.  
  
“False charges,” Eleanore said. She raised her eyebrows. “Don’t tell me that you haven’t been thrown in jail by someone who didn’t want you sticking your nose into things?”  
  
“Well, I have, but not in years. Not since I teamed up with Tabitha, in fact.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“She happens to people who try to arrest us.”  
  
“Happens to do what?”  
  
“No, no,” Kirche said, shaking her head. “She _happens_.”  
  
“People die when Tabitha happens,” Danny said, wrapping his arms around himself. In the dim light, he was a little paler than usual.  
  
“Yeah, she’s pretty great like that,” Kirche agreed. “It’s, like, quite a thing to watch.”  
  
“Fascinating,” Eleanore said, her tone indicating that she thought it was anything but. “But I don’t care. Here’s the deal. I know what happened in Amstelredamme. In return, I want something. I’ve discovered the possibility that the Abyss might seek to tear the world apart. I’ll help you with your Amstelredamme problem if you help me investigate this and discover if this danger truly exists.”  
  
“If it’s a threat, why not just tell someone?” Danny demanded.  
  
Eleanore’s eyebrows fluted upwards. “I am telling the leader of one of the most reputed band of young heroes in Halkeginia. Who else do you want me to tell?”  
  
“... um. Well, uh… what about your royals and stuff?”  
  
“The queen is weak-minded, and the Regency Council had me arrested for six months on false charges - and one of their members was possessed by a demon and no one noticed,” Eleanore said sharply. “I’m sorry, I’d rather _avoid_ the Abyss discovering that I’m investigating the possibility that they’re plotting such a thing. Not least because if this isn’t actually real, letting them know will just give them ideas. And no one wants that.”  
  
Kirche leaned back against the wall, eyes alert and narrow. “Hmm. You want to know what I think about you?” she asked Eleanore.  
  
“Well, not particularly, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”  
  
“I think you’re a de la Vallière - and not a zero-talent failure like Louise, a real one. I think you’re cunning, treacherous, ambitious, and you think you’re better than everyone else.”  
  
“Your point is?” Eleanore said, one eyebrow raised.  
  
“... aren’t you going to deny it?”  
  
“I’m quite aware of my vices, thank you very much. I know pride is a weakness of mine.” Eleanore leaned forwards. “Are you aware of _your_ vices? Where will you fail, Kirche, when the moment comes?”  
  
Kirche laughed. “Oh dear. You’re playing that kind of stupid game with me. I’m not like you. I don’t have hundreds of years of evil ancestors in my bloodline. Most people don’t have a constant pressing force of darkness within them leading them into sin. And, you know, we aren’t big huge bitches with a thing for sneaking up behind people in the shadows and offering them shady deals.”  
  
“Naïve.” Eleanore’s words were cutting. “You know very well that the von Zerbsts have eloped with de la Vallière white eggs before, just like we’ve married your black eggs - and even if that wasn’t true, you don’t need a heritage like mine to fall because of your weaknesses. It just makes things easier. How do you…”  
  
“Who do you think you are, to lecture Kirche like that?” Danny demanded.  
  
Eleanore sighed. “I was _trying_ to provide sage advice from an older, more experienced heroine,” she said acidly. “Maybe even assume something of a mentorly role to avoid you repeating my mistakes - of which there were many. And on that note, Kirche, your little brother is a firebrand and a hothead who’s going to get himself into trouble.”  
  
“Yeah, already knew that. He does get himself into trouble on a regular basis,” Kirche yawned.  
  
“Kirche!”  
  
“Danny, it’s true. Last week you punched a mercenary captain twice your weight because he spilled your drink. And you,” she said to Eleanore while Danny muttered about how the man’d had it coming, “are you going to keep on going on?”  
  
Opening her mouth, Eleanore seemed on the edge of a cutting retort. Then she deliberately took a deep breath. “No. You know what? I am trying to be a better person. I’m not going to negotiate for a deal or try to blackmail you into helping me save the world from the Abyss. I’m just going to ask nicely.” Her lips curled up and her brows furrowed, as if she had something bitter in her mouth. “Please?” she tried.  
  
“You could try sounding more sincere,” Kirche said thoughtfully.  
  
“Pretty… pl-please?”  
  
“Now you just sound sarcastic.”  
  
“Look, do you want the bloody information or not?” Eleanore demanded, having worn through her diminutive stores of patience.  
  
“Bloody information? Who did you murder to—”  
  
“I can’t believe it! I very much can’t believe it! You are literally more willing to negotiate with a demon than talk to me about saving the world! You’re not even accepting the information to evaluate it on its own terms!”  
  
“Well, yes.” Kirche smirked. “Demons are more trustworthy than de la Vallières.”  
  
“And there comes the darn von Zerbst _compulsion_ to get the last word in!” Eleanore stormed off. She turned. “Your pride will get you in time. Trust me, I’m speaking from experience,” she added bitterly.

* * *

Eleanore had got down two more twisting corridors when she heard the patter of feet behind her. She turned, and then looked down to see Danny.  
  
“Look, Kirche is just being a butt because she doesn’t want to be here,” Danny said frankly. “She wants to be with her friends. How about you tell me instead?”  
  
“You’re twelve,”  
  
“Thirteen! And I’m on the team too! At least when I can get away from school and the nannies Mother sends after me to track me down!”  
  
Eleanore sighed. She really did have no better option - and father had said she had a long, hard path of unlearning certain habits. “I can’t believe I’m reduced to this… but very well. I’m going to trust you with this.”  
  
Danny grinned, jamming his hands in his pockets before he frowned. “But why aren’t you telling your parents, then?”  
  
“I have. And it’s… complicated,” Eleanore said, spreading her hands. “Just before you arrived, I got in a flaming row with my mother because… well, she didn’t like some of the things I said. She stormed out – and when my mother storms out of a place, we’re not talking metaphorically. It was literally a storm. I’m afraid most of the time I’ve spent around her in the past decade has usually ended up in arguments, but this was worse than usual. And that’s saying something. And Father is naturally cautious. He doesn’t like rushing into things.”  
  
“And you’re not cautious?”  
  
Eleanore smiled wryly. “I am my mother’s daughter as well as my father’s. Why do you think I’m telling you these things?”  
  
“You know,” Danny said, thoughtfully, “I don’t think you’re as bad as Kirche says you are.”  
  
“Ah. So I’m worse.”  
  
“You’re funny,” Danny said with a giggle that he hastily tried to convert into a manly chuckle. “And,” his ears popped. “Did you just feel that?”  
  
“The sudden change in atmospheric pressure?” Eleanore said drily. “Yes. It means Mother is back. And still hasn’t calmed down.” She took a deep breath. “I suppose I ought to be a dutiful daughter and present myself.”  
  
“Why’re you like this? Your mother’s awesome,” Danny insisted.  
  
“Oh, she very much is. She is awesome. She is worthy of awe. I am in awe of her – and have lived my entire life with the people who don’t see me as another de la Vallière monster instead seeing me as just ‘Karin’s daughter’. They look at me and want me to be her – and I can’t do that. Do you know what it’s like to know you’ll never be the equal of your famous parent?”  
  
Danny looked at her flatly. “Yes. What’s your point? And for that matter, do you know what it’s like to know you’ll never be the equal of your big sister?”  
  
With an unexpected giggle, Eleanore conceded the point. “Very well. You probably do understand, then.”  
  
Squaring his jaw, Danny jammed his hands in his pockets. “Tell you what, actually. You said you want this stuff about the plans of the Abyss to be looked into. But there’s two things I want from you. ‘Cause I can see you’re like Kirche and you hate being given things without feeling like you’ve earned it.”  
  
“What are you asking for?”  
  
“You used to be a hero, didn’t you? And you were talking about how you were trying to be all mentor-y to Kirche, but she’s too pig-headed to listen to you. Well, give me some training then. You get to pass on stuff – and also we have an excuse to talk – and I get someone helping me get stronger.”  
  
“Hmm.” Eleanore looked Danny up and down. “I’m not a nice person. I won’t make it easy.”  
  
“Look, I get what time I can grab with Dad, and what the others pass on and what I can teach myself,” Danny said bluntly. “Kirche gets the personal time with him. Maybe he’ll pay more attention to me if I can stand out from the others. I’m not looking for easy. I’m looking for what works.”  
  
“That’s an attitude I can get behind. What’s the other thing?”  
  
Blushing, Danny looked away. “I… forget about it. It’s… it’s just one thing. We… I just want to get stronger.”  
  
Eleanore’s brow wrinkled as she evaluated Danny. “You’re a little troublemaker. You’re a hothead with a short temper. You rush into things and get yourself into trouble. You idolise your parent, but don’t feel you can be what they want you to be. You also feel stuck in your eldest sister’s shadow, and want to be her equal – even though you love her.”  
  
“D-does that mean no?”  
  
“No, it means ‘yes’. And also ‘never ask why it means yes’.”  
  
“Yaaaay! Oh Founder this is going to be so cool! You’re going to teach me blade tricks and how to pick locks properly and lots of new kinds of spells and we’re going to train and train and train until I hit triangle rank and we can go hunt goblins and orcs and trolls and dragons and even more goblins and…”  
  
Eleanore’s smile had a hint of melancholy in it. “You remind me of someone. Someone I knew when I was younger. Just promise you’ll never make a pact with the forces of Evil.”


	67. A Winter's Heroic Interlude In Three Parts - Blue

**A Winter’s Heroic Interlude In Three Parts**  
  
**Part 2 – Blue**

* * *

The piercing winds howled across the icy fens around Amstelredamme and through the old city. The fires were out, but that just meant that slushy snow was blown up in mounds lining the gutted buildings. Guiche de Gramont wrapped his cloak around him more tightly, and shivered.  
  
“This truly is miserable weather,” he said.  
  
“Oui.” Tabitha was almost spherical from her layers of clothing. Beside her, her dragon huffed in agreement. “Mole. How long?”  
  
“Verdandi is still searching for a trail - and she’s a mole, not a bloodhound. This is hard going for her,” Guiche said defensively. He kicked up slush and leaned against a wall, huddling in the wind shadow of the building. “What do you think happened here? No one seems to know for certain.”  
  
For her own part, Tabitha - who had been at the Cabal Awards when this had all happened - had a rather better idea than most people. “Two dark gods were fighting for power. Zat eez what I think ‘appened ‘ere.”  
  
“Two? Not one?”  
  
“I ‘ave heard ze rumours,” she said, not saying where she heard them. “For a dark goddess to be so weak, I would say zat that meant she was either weak and old, or new to ze power.”  
  
“Yes. Yes. That would make sense.” Guiche frowned. “But then why would there be,” he shuddered elegantly, “minions here?”  
  
Tabitha shrugged.  
  
“Hmm. I wonder if it was another plan of the Overlady of the North. She did try to subvert Amstelredamme in the summer, so perhaps she tried again. But then again, the Madame de Montespan was possessed by the powers of evil! I feel there has to be something we’re missing. Some greater scheme.” Pulling out his notebook, Guiche scribbled something down. “Here’s what I think we should do. We need to gather the evidence that there was some greater evil plot behind this, so they can’t dismiss us. We’ll probably need evidence from three or four different locations to build a solid case, so we can get the support of the Council.”  
  
“Will zat work?”  
  
“Of course,” Guiche said confidently. “Especially with Kirche on side, there’s no way anyone will dare make disingenuous assertions or try to slander us. Because she’ll punch them if they do. Or she’ll set them on fire. I sort of wish she wouldn’t do that, actually. I could talk my way out of things, but she always interrupts at the first chance.” Rubbing his hands together, he blew on them. “We have that meeting with Magdalene van Delft in half an hour. No doubt this is our chance to find out what she knows – and see if there’s any clues we can unravel! Maybe without Kirche, we can do it without anyone getting punched in the face.”  
  
Tabitha didn’t care, and rather enjoyed the violence and chaos that Kirche punching someone usually produced. Looking up to the sky, a small fleck of motion caught her attention. She adjusted her glasses, squinting, and slumped fractionally. Tabitha held out her arm as a rest, and a bird landed on it. Only it wasn’t a bird, Guiche realised in surprise; it was paper folded into the shape of a bird. Tabitha straightened it out, scanning the message in a glance.  
  
“I must go,” she said.  
  
“Sorry, I beg your pardon?”  
  
“Eet eez not possible for me to stay. I ‘ave been summoned to court.”  
  
“What does the Queen want with you?”  
  
Tabitha adjusted her glasses. “Non. Ze Gallian court.” She whistled for her dragon. “You must stay ‘ere and…”  
  
“No!” Guiche didn’t quite realise where he was going with this until he’d already said it. “I mean, if you don’t mind, I’m coming with you.”  
  
“I do mind.”  
  
“I’m still coming!”  
  
“Non.”  
  
“Yes!”  
  
“Non.”  
  
“Yes!”  
  
Tabitha slumped down. This was more effort than she evidently wanted to put in. “Fine. But you will wait wiz Slyphid. Zat court eez a nest of vipers.”  
  
The dragon whuffled happily, butting her head up against Guiche in a playful manner that still nearly knocked him over on the icy floor. Clinging onto her neck for balance, Guiche tried to pretend he hadn’t nearly landed flat on his arse and failed. “Kirche said you’d taken her to your home and Gallia once or twice,” he managed.  
  
“Kirche talks. Like you.”  
  
Guiche sighed, already regretting the cold flight that he foresaw. But his honour would not let a maiden go out and about unaccompanied. Even if it was Tabitha who was a living murder-machine who had once heard of the concept of a damsel in distress and decided that it sounded easier to be a damsel who put other people in distress. “I wish the others were here,” he said, voice hitching. “But Monmon’s family wants her back, and Kirche… well, Kirche also has family things.”  
  
“I wish Blitzhart von Zerbst was my family,” Tabitha whispered faintly. Guiche didn’t catch that; partly because she was soft-spoken and the wind was loud, but mostly because she said it in Gallian.

* * *

Any plans to hide Guiche from the treachery and decadence of the Gallian court were for naught. As soon as the dragon landed both Tabitha and Guiche were seized by powdered popinjays. Guiche did consider resisting, but given that Tabitha hadn’t happened to them this was probably some strange Gallian custom. At least it was much warmer in Versailles, safe from the piercing winds blowing off the Great North Sea.  
  
An hour later, Guiche was none-too-gently thrust into a grand masquerade ball. If this was a kidnapping, it was the second most unusual one to date, only edged out by that time the forces of the Abyss had snatched him and forced him to wear white underthings and pose with a sword. The hall was lit by countless floating candles, gleaming upon windstone chandeliers, while the floor had been flooded and pleasure barges floated upon the waters.  
  
He smoothed down his blue velvet waistcoat, and sidled up to Tabitha who looked glum in a black silk dress and a devil-mask. Even if he hadn’t known to look for someone as short as her, the fact that she was wearing her glasses over the top of her mask and had smuggled in a book would have been a dead giveaway.  
  
“What’s going on?” he hissed.  
  
“Zis is one of my uncle’s parties,” Tabitha said, her usual monotone tinged with a smidgen of weariness. It was highly unusual for her to emote that much, and Guiche stiffened up.  
  
“One of your uncle’s? But…” He swallowed. “Oh. Uh. Your highness.”  
  
“Don’t call me zat.”  
  
“Yes, your highness.”  
  
“Are you trying to be funny?”  
  
“... yes,” Guiche admitted.  
  
“Stop zat. Eet is not funny when Kirche does eet either.”  
  
One of the flunkies wanted Tabitha to follow her. Guiche drifted in her wake as she was led to the throne on the highest barge. A blue-haired pale man with delicate, china-like features and very pale skin sprawled on the seat, his crown tilted at a jaunty angle. He had one leg hooked over the arm of the chair, and he looked over the crowd below with a wry expression.  
  
“Oh, Charlotte!” King Joseph said in Gallian. “You showed up at my party! Dear girl, how wonderful! I’m so glad you could make time for your dear old uncle.”  
  
“You said my absence would be considered treason,” Tabitha said in the same language.  
  
“So I did! But you’re here, so there’s really no need for me to have your stomach sliced open, your intestines removed, and used to strangle you! Hurrah, hurrah, what a wonderful day this is! And who is this companion you brought with you? Your mistress? She has such beautiful blonde hair.”  
  
Tabitha blinked. “Your majesty, this is Guiche de Gramont, the famed hero. He is a _man_ ,” she added, in case her uncle was having a particularly bad day. “Though yes, the hair can be a trifle confusing.”  
  
“Why didn’t you bring that gorgeous Kirche girl with you?” the king asked, a little sulkily. “She’s one hell of a woman. I’d even picked out a dress I was going to give to her as a gift. It was backless. And frontless.”  
  
“She is with her family for the new year. I thought it best not to anger Blitzhart von Zerbst by pulling his heir away from his celebration. He might have got violent, tracked us down, and jumped through the window while shooting fire at you.”  
  
King Joseph blinked, something that almost approached sanity flickering through his eyes. “Oh, yes, yes… uh, good thinking there, Charlotte.”  
  
Guiche understood very little of that, because he lacked magical translation glasses of the kind used by the Abyss and his Gallian was what might charitably be called hero-grade. That is to say, while he was capable of asking where the orcs were and whether there were any giant rats present in a local inn, it was rather lacking in courtly manners. He recognised his name, however, and bowed deeply to the Gallian king. “Your majesty, I am pleased to have been invited to the wonders of Versailles,” he said.  
  
“He says…” Tabitha began.  
  
“I can speak Tristainian,” King Joseph said sharply, in that language. His accent was much less opaque than Tabitha’s, and largely served to give his voice an exotic hint that almost managed to overcome the petulance. “I don’t know why everyone insists on treating me like I’m a fool. It’s basically treason, don’t you know? I am the king! I deserve respect! And demand it!”  
  
“Your majesty,” Guiche said, with a florid bow. “I am honoured that you saw fit to invite me to this winter celebration.”  
  
“I didn’t invite you! You just showed up!” the king said sharply, before smiling. “But I don’t care about that! Charlotte is a very boring guest, you know! She’s always reading! She doesn’t have one comic story about milkmaids to tell! I hope you’re more interesting!”  
  
“I am at your majesty’s disposal,” Guiche said. “I hope I can be of some interest to you.”  
  
“Oh, I do too! I’m so dreadfully bored! Charlotte, begone! I think Isabella is looking for you.” Tabitha departed without a word, and the king turned his full attention to Guiche, taking him in. His eyes were cold and dead, exposing the lie of his smile; his pupils were pinpricks. Guiche became faintly aware that the king of Gallia was trembling slightly. “I do believe I am a fish, Mademoiselle Guiche,” said the king, after a long moment of thought. “I have thought about this long and hard, and the evidence seems incontrovertible.”  
  
“I… see.”  
  
“Consider this. My blood is red, much like a fish’s. I have a spine, a skull, teeth and ribs. I have four fins, though mine are longer than those of most fish. Is it therefore not logical that I am a fish?”  
  
He seemed to want something from Guiche. A bead of sweat formed on the young man’s brow. “How good a swimmer are you, your majesty?” he tried. “If you’re at home in the water, would that not reinforce your… your point.”  
  
“Ah ha! An excellent point! I am a fantastic swimmer! Is not my fish-like nature evident for the world to see? Your wisdom is as evident as my fish-like nature, young lady.”  
  
“Very… very evident.”  
  
Leaning forwards, King Joseph crossed his hands on his lap. “Now, I do believe I’ve heard of certain tales of your exploits. Now, when it comes to it… how exactly did you beat Fouquet?”  
  
Guiche blinked. “Are you sure you really want to hear that tale, your majesty?” he asked, mildly surprised. “It’s one of the first things I did, and I look back at it with some mild embarrassment.”  
  
The king laughed, throwing back his head. “Good, good! No one really wants to hear about that! No, no, I jest! I hear from Charlotte that last summer, though, you stumbled across a tear in the world that led to the Abyss.”  
  
“Yes, your majesty, we did.”  
  
“Have you any idea what might have caused such a terrible tragedy?” The king pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his dry eyes. “I can’t cry, you know. It’s a shame.”  
  
“We don’t know what caused it. It just seemed to happen, but we have heard tale of other such things all across Halkeginia.”  
  
Down on the other boats, the musicians struck up music in a minor key. “My daughter has been studying such things. You should meet her. You could plait each other’s hair or something like that! Whatever girls do together! That, and stop the Abyss stealing my kingdom. It’d be very bad of them. In fact, I insist. You there!” He jabbed one finger at a courtier. “Take this lady to meet my daughter, or I’ll have your hand sewn to your heads!”  
  
There was something slightly weary about the courtier’s posture. “Yes, your majesty,” he said. “Zis way.”  
  
King Joseph watched them go. “What a nice young man,” he said to the thin air, once they were out of earshot. “So willing to humour me. I’d give him a title, if he wasn’t Tristainian filth. Now, time to find a duc to bemuse. Perhaps I should pretend that I think he’s a moorhen.”  
  
He paused, as if listening to someone.  
  
“No, no, keep at what you’re doing, my dear. You have important business in Albion. You need to find me my special hat, for one.”

* * *

Guiche stirred. The last thing he remembered, he’d been talking to the Gallian princess - that is, the one who wasn’t Tabitha - and then his wine had started tasting of sleepiness.  
  
People really needed to stop doing that.  
  
He opened his eyes.  
  
“Um,” he said, after evaluating how very, very pink the scene before him was. It wasn’t that everything in front of him had ruffles or frills. It wasn’t the large and extensive collection of stuffed fluffy animals who stared down at him with glassy eyes. It wasn’t the bed big enough for six that he was lying on, or the fact that everything smelled of flowers. It was all of that, and also the worryingly intense look the scantily clad crown princess of Gallia was giving him.  
  
“‘Ello,” she said. Guiche wasn’t very experienced in what might be considered the ‘advanced’ elements of flirting. Both his school days and his heroing days never got him that far – and for the past year or so, he’d been pining after Monmon. However, he was fairly sure that the adverb ‘coquettishly’ might be applicable, if that was even a word. She snapped a fan open in front of her face. This obscured her lower mouth, but not any of her ample female attributes on display which were barely hidden by a few measures of pink and white cloth. “So you are awake. What are you doing een my boudoir?”  
  
“I woke up here after drinking a glass of wine you handed to me,” Guiche said, without thinking. Damn. He should have been more careful. He was fairly sure that it was princesses who were meant to be kidnapped, not doing the kidnapping. Then again, now he knew that Tabitha was secretly a princess, and last time someone had tried to kidnap her she’d torn out all of the would-be abductor’s blood. Clearly there were traditions here in Gallia he didn’t understand.  
  
“But of course,” Princess Isabella said. “Zat eez ‘ow you meet young men, eez eet not?”  
  
Guiche tilted his head, as he tried and failed to squirm out of the ropes. “Um,” he said. “I don’t really have a response for that.”  
  
“Eet eez,” she said firmly. “And you are such an ‘andsom ‘ero!” She ran one pale hand over his arm. “I like ‘ow you are all slender and not built like a wall zat eez made of bricks. Too many men are like zat.”  
  
“I do sort of have an arrangement with someone else. Another girl,” he said. “She’s very nearly my fiancée,” he added, bending the truth in the somewhat desperate hope that the girl with the too-intense eyes would back off.  
  
“... but zat means she is not your fiancée.”  
  
“I’d like her to be.”  
  
Princess Isabella’s shoulders slumped down. “And eez she as pretty as me? I bet she eez not even a princess!”  
  
“I’m sorry, it’s nothing personal.” The princess was indeed, quite attractive, even if she had an over-large forehead and slightly too large eyes to be truly pretty. Also, her gaze looked like it could cut glass. That didn’t help matters. But Guiche had spent too much time around Tabitha to feel attracted to a member of the Gallian royal family. The thought of getting intimate with someone who shared blood with a girl who carried so many hidden knives made vulnerable parts of him cringe in fear. “But I’ve known her for a long time and… well, I first met you today and then you drugged me and tied me down in your bedroom. It does rather weight things in her favour.”  
  
Isabella’s face fell. “Merde,” she muttered. “Zis always ‘appens, you know? Ze nice boys I meet, zey already ‘ave fiancees or are married, and ze not-so-nice boys, zey are only out to marry me for my crown and position as ‘eir.”  
  
“Poor you,” Guiche said earnestly. “It must be terrible.”  
  
“Eet eez! And zen I ‘ave to ‘ave them imprisoned and I ‘ave to tell Charlotte not to smother zem in zeir cells and zen it takes ‘er so long to getting around to doing it…”  
  
“Wait, sorry, what?”  
  
“... and just when you think zat you’ve met someone who might be compatible, eet turns out to be zat ‘e eez being paid by your fazzer to torment you because ‘e thinks eet is funny.”  
  
Guiche considered the conversation he had had with the King of Gallia today. He reached out with one tied-up hand, and managed to pat her on the hand reassuringly. “There, there,” he said. “I met your father. I can’t imagine how bad it must be to have to interact with him on a daily basis.”  
  
“I will just go untie you,” Princess Isabella said, shoulders slumped down. She picked up a fluffy pink dressing gown from the floor, and put it on, then got to work on the ropes. “Zis ‘as been a farce from start to finish. I ‘ad zought zat you were single, and… well, one zing led to another and eet is all very embarrassing.”  
  
“No, no, it’s all my fault for not making it clear enough,” Guiche said, on the grounds that it was always good to be nice and understanding to the person who had you tied up but you’d just about talked into letting you go.  
  
“Such a shame. Most men would not be as understanding as you.” She sighed again. “I ‘ope that your woman eez very ‘appy with you. She eez very lucky.”  
  
He sat up, rubbing his wrists. At least she hadn’t been cutting off his circulation with the way she’d tied them. The princess clearly had practice at this. “I hope so too. If we can just get around the problem with her family…” He shut his mouth. He hadn’t wanted to mention that.  
  
“Non, I understand,” Isabella said, sitting down next to him on the bed. “Really, I do. My fazzer eez crazier than a farmer who uses foxes to guard ‘ens. I too understand ze problems of family.” She gestured to him. “Go on, _s'il vous plaît_.”  
  
“Well, her family is in debt. She’s been trying her hardest to earn enough to pay it off, but they’ve gone and arranged an awful marriage for her because they need the money.”  
  
“‘Ow terrible. And you love ‘er? And she loves you?”  
  
“I… I love her, yes.” Guiche stared into the middle distance, at a glass-eyed bear that gazed vacantly back. “And I think she loves me. Enough that she told me she can’t be caught talking to me, because she’s scared that she’ll do something inappropriate.”  
  
Princess Isabella patted him on the shoulder. “Zat eez sad. ‘Ave you zought what you will do?”  
  
“I… I don’t know. I feel torn.”  
  
Reaching down, she squeezed his hand. “If I were you, I would not let ‘er go. She sounds like she will be miserable in zis arranged marriage. She does not want eet and you do not want eet. Zere must be some way to stop eet.” The princess perked up. “I know! I will lend you Charlotte! She eez a very evil girl who murders people when you tell ‘er not to do it, so you will just need to tell ‘er not to kill your love’s ‘usband-to-be and then she will do eet and zen… simple! Ze obstacle to true love ‘as been removed!”  
  
“Um.” Guiche wetted his lips. “That’s not what heroes are meant to do.”  
  
“Oh? Zat is a problem.” Isabella leaned against his shoulder. “I try to be good, but it is ‘ard. Zey say zat zere eez a problem with us, those with royal blood in Gallia. Everyone else seems to find eet so easy to know what to do. I think we ‘ave been marrying among ourselves too long, trying to keep ze blood of the ‘Oly Void pure. Zat is why I thought that you - a foreign ‘ero - might have been a fine consort.”  
  
Guiche nodded sympathetically. Time to deploy his hidden technique. “At least you’re trying. Here’s a bit of advice. If you want to meet men, perhaps don’t drug them and drag them to your bedchamber,” he suggested. “It’s probably better to get to know them in other ways beforehand.”  
  
Princess Isabella nodded. “I think I ‘ave some parchment around ‘ere,” she said, getting up to root through her stuffed-toy-covered chest of drawers. “Do you ‘ave any more suggestions? I think I should be making notes.”

* * *

Tabitha was waiting for Guiche outside. She had contrived to lose her mask, and was wearing a guard’s jacket over the top of her dress. No one dared to ask her how she had got her hands on the warm garment.  
  
“You are not imprisoned,” she said, showing very mild surprise and even looking up from her book. “And I ‘ave not been ordered not to smother you.”  
  
They were going to have to talk about that later, Guiche decided. “Oh yes. Once we’d cleared up the misunderstanding, me and your cousin just talked for a while. She’s a nice girl.” He considered his statement. “Well, no, she isn’t. But she’s trying to be a nice girl, while not really having much of a clue what that entails. I think she’s just as mucked up as you are.”  
  
She stared blankly back at him, not saying a word.  
  
“I can’t imagine how bad it must have been for you as children.”  
  
Tabitha managed to contrive to become even paler. “‘Ow much do you know?” she asked quietly.  
  
“Enough to know that there’s very good reasons that you’re peculiar. And so good at, uh, happening. Potions, education in isolated schools that are more like jails, iron masks...”  
  
“Not even Kirche knows.”  
  
Guiche jammed his hands in his pockets. “Mmm. She might. She’s smarter than she acts. But, Founder, you couldn’t pay me to be part of your family, even if it’d make me a prince. I gave your cousin some advice about being good and how to meet boys and how kidnapping them and dragging them to your bedroom isn’t how it’s meant to be done. It came as a genuine surprise to her, can you believe?”  
  
Tabitha blinked. “Wait. Zat eez not how eet is done?”  
  
“... and apparently you also need that talk. Well, you have Kirche. She certainly knows more about that topic. Both about meeting boys and also being a boy.” He ran his hands through his blond hair. “It’s a little embarrassing to admit that Kirche is better at being a swashbuckling playboy than me, but Blitzhart von Zerbst _is_ her father.”  
  
“Zere eez no man like ‘im,” Tabitha agreed.  
  
“You certainly have that right.” He paused. “Are you feeling alright? After she cried into my shoulder and talked about how bad her school had been and… well, I talked to her and she said I was her best friend and the only person who didn’t want something from her.” He shook his head. “Your cousin hopefully won’t order you to kill as many people in future. Or… not order you or… this whole set up makes my head hurt.”  
  
“Tradition.”  
  
“Yeah, well, your traditions are awful. I’m sorry, but they are. And I think I can see what they were going for at first. If about half the royal family is good and the other half is evil, if you get them young enough you can channel their impulses usefully. Of course it didn’t work. People are more complicated than that. And you can’t filter for good and evil aged six. No wonder you’re all crazy.” He paused. “Uh, sorry.”  
  
“My mother eez mad. So eez my uncle. Madness eez in the royal line. Do not be sorry.”  
  
They stepped out into the winter chill. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”  
  
“Amstelredamme?”  
  
Guiche shook his head. “No. There’s no real clues there - nothing that someone else can’t find. If it’s fine with you, I think we should go with my parents. It’s warm there, we’re nice and not-at-all-like-your-family, and you might as well get to meet some of my sisters for girl talk from someone who isn’t Kirche. And there’ll be absolutely no killing, unless you want to go hunting with my mother.” He paused, looking back at Tabitha who had stopped where she was. “What is it?”  
  
“What are you planning?” she asked flatly. “Eez it because you know that I am now a princess? Are you trying to marry me?”  
  
Guiche pulled a face. “No! I already had your cousin throwing herself at me today, thank you, and… Tabitha, you scare me. Even if I didn’t have my… thing with Monmon, you’re not a girl I’d go for. I’m just… I don’t think enough people have been nice to you in your life, so I’m trying to be… nice. That’s all.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“While we’re there, I think it might be a good idea to do some research into that priest who Monmon mentioned in her last letter and see if we can dig up something there. And then maybe we can go off and grab the others, and go kill dragons or something over the New Year.”  
  
Something hot blew on the back of his neck. He looked up at Tabitha’s dragon.  
  
“Present company not included,” he added quickly, clapping his hands together. He paused, tilting his head. “Though I can’t help but think there was something we were supposed to do. Something I’m forgetting.”  
  
Tabitha was no use and stared blankly back at him.  
  
“Oh well. It probably wasn’t that important.”

* * *

“Where in the name of the Founder are they?” snapped Magdalene van Delft, back in Amstelredamme. She checked the clock hanging on the wall. Her meeting with Guiche de Gramont had been due three hours ago and she was a very busy woman!  
  
Her calendar was packed with meetings from her new ascension to the Council of Regents, she was overseeing the clean-up of the city, and on top of that she was a sleep-deprived new mother. This fact made itself clear again, as her son started to wail and she realised she couldn’t just snap things without thinking these days.  
  
“Hush, hush, hush. Mama’s here. What’s the matter? I know I didn’t mean to raise my voice but… are you wet? No. Hungry?” Clasping her son to her chest, Magdalene rocked him back and forth. “Lord and Founder, how… how am I meant to… it’s going to be at least a year or two before you’re a person rather than a little crying monster and… and…”  
  
“I always found them nicest at that age,” said a voice at the door.  
  
Magdalene looked up and paled. “Aunt Karina?” she asked the figure wrapped up in warm furs. A hint of pink hair poked out from under the hood. “What are you doing here?”  
  
“Oh, you know how it is,” the Duchess de la Vallière said. “I was feeling a little trapped inside the house. Chunks of giant winged squid-dragon may be washing up on the shore over the next few days. Incidentally, squid-dragons were planning to invade Amstelredamme.”  
  
“Uh… there’s no risk of that?”  
  
“Not anymore.” Karina pushed back her hood, revealing her sharp features which much resembled her eldest and her youngest daughters. “I thought I’d stop by and congratulate you on the birth. How are you coping?”  
  
Trying to smile, Magdalene instead merely winced. “He’s keeping me up. He wasn’t an easy birth, either. Of course, it’s never easy giving birth after being stabbed.”  
  
“Cattleya was the same,” Karina said, understandingly. “It’s harder to avoid knives when you’re heavily pregnant.” She paused, deliberately. “Do you want to talk about the circumstances of the birth?”  
  
“Excuse me?” It was warm in Magdalene’s office, but she suddenly felt cold and clammy.  
  
“Eleanore had quite an interesting tale when she arrived at my doorstep with poor Françoise-Athenais’ soulless body in tow,” Karina said, her attitude that of an older relative congratulating a new mother. “A tale of dark gods and possession and other such things. Not to mention quite a guilty confession about how she was nearly corrupted herself. I thought I’d just stop by and see if you had anything you’d want to add to that.”  
  
Magdalene swallowed. She began to spin her tale. And if there was one thing she was very glad of, it was that Aunt Karina was not a de la Vallière of the main branch by blood. It made everything so much easier.


	68. A Winter's Heroic Interlude In Three Parts - Yellow

**A Winter’s Heroic Interlude In Three Parts**  
  
**Part 3 – Yellow**

* * *

The grand hall of the Montmorency family was a rival to the ancestral homes of any of the other great families of Tristain. Busts of ancestors glowered down from plinths and the weaponry of former heroes decorated the walls. Yet the grand paintings were blackened with soot, the velvet curtains were tattered and balding, and the silverware had long since been sold off. There were not enough candles to light such a vast space, and the fire was unlit.  
  
Montmorency de la Montmorency was wrapped up warm, her breath visible in the chill air. Her familiar Robin was refusing to come out of the warmth of her pocket; frogs were too sensible creatures for that. The blond ringlets falling around her face couldn’t soften her hard eyes. She forced herself to smile, even though she was so very sick of putting on a happy face. But she couldn’t let her younger sister or her step-sisters see her sadness or her anger. She couldn’t let her wicked step-mother see any trace of weakness.  
  
Her father loudly drained the dregs from the bottle of wine in his hand, and without thinking went to open the next one before him. He wasn’t watering it down, Monmon thought sadly, and hated herself for mentally totting up the cost. But it was what she did. Her stepmother reached out to try to move the bottle away from him, but he slapped her hand out of the way.  
  
Her sister Charlotte caught her eye, glancing over at their step-sisters Marguerite and Charlotte-Marguerite. If her own name hadn’t been enough of a clue, their father was atrocious at naming children. The little brats were fighting again. They couldn’t even stay quiet at a moment like this.  
  
Darn it. Darn it all. Things had been better once. Before her brothers had died in the war. Before her mother had died giving birth to Charlotte. Before her father had sunk down into a bottle and married her shrill harpy of an evil stepmother.  
  
And certainly before that little _tick_ of a priest had shown up. Monmon looked over at Abbé Étienne Guibourg, seated next to her father, with a stare that was very nearly a glare. The priest was blond and pale, almost bloodless, with watery blue eyes. He was her father’s spiritual advisor, at least in name. In practice, he was the one who ran the family. Her father listened to him much more than he did her. No matter how hard she tried to change things or prevent him from wasting the money her heroing brought in, that sugar-head was there to reassure her drunk of a father that what he was doing was the right thing. She’d have been able to hold the creditors at bay if it hadn’t been for him, and Monmon was all but sure that he was the one who had arranged the marriage.  
  
Oh, there was something going on with him, no doubt, and many times she’d been on the edge of asking her friends to… remove him. She could just tell them he was evil, and they’d spring into action. But she couldn’t order a man’s death on a personal grudge without proof that he was actually in league with the dark powers. That wasn’t what a good person did. Stupid useless sense of decency.  
  
And there he was, standing up, with that wretched cursed slight smile on his face. The abbé clasped its hands together. “Let us pray,” he said. “We thank the Lord God for his manifold gifts to us, and hope that in the forthcoming year we might fully make use of them. We thank the Founder for the gift of family, which brings us what we all deserve. We thank the lesser spirits who are the sentinels of the Lord on this earth, who ensure that all shall be made right. And most of all, we thank the Church, for the blessings it provides so that we may right all past sins.”  
  
Monmon was certainly praying. She was praying that he’d be hit by a cart.

* * *

After the meal, Monmon made her way to the study to once again check the accounts. It was a habit she had acquired years ago, and it calmed her down. Yes, it seldom provided good news, but at least she knew the bad news was coming. She had always felt that it was better to know that you were about to be torn to shreds by a ravenous swarm of vampire bats than to sit in blissful ignorance right until the first fangs sunk into your flesh.  
  
Things were not going well. Her father’s wavering, shaky handwriting wobbled across the page, counting out expenditure after expenditure and very little to balance it out. To Fr. Giles, 23 e. payment and interest. To Abbé Eccles, 12 e., wine and repayment. From Fr. Giles, 12e winnings. To Fr. Giles, 23e, payment and interest. The names went on and on.  
  
She twirled a lock of hair around one finger. She had tried to get her father to practice double ledger accounting, but as it was he couldn’t even manage single. And trying to handle the household accounts was always an exercise in forensics and trying to piece together things from scraps of paper tucked into drawers or occasionally torn into shreds and tossed into the wastepaper bin. But as far as she could discern, everything she’d made from the incident with Kirche’s evil succubus half-sister had just gone. Vanished into the triple holes of creditors, card tables, and her father’s drinking habit.  
  
“Sugar,” she whispered, letting her head sink down onto the table with a quiet thud. “Sugar, sugar, sugar.” That had been her last chance, and he’d wasted it. Just like he always did.  
  
“You shouldn’t spend so much time in here,” her stepmother said. Monmon jumped. She hadn’t heard the woman come in.  
  
“I think I should,” she replied coolly, not looking up.  
  
“Montmorency, please. You’re wasting your time in here. You should be trying to enjoy your youth, while you still have it.”  
  
Monmon looked up at her wicked stepmother with barely veiled hostility. She remembered how she’d met the woman for the first time. She had been nine, her mother had barely been dead a year, and here was this gold-digging shrew out to win her father’s hand. The woman had dared _pretend_ to be nice and had tried to bribe her with a honeycomb! Nothing she had done since then had improved Monmon’s opinion of her.  
  
“Perhaps,” she said, “but it’s my time to waste.”  
  
The other woman narrowed her eyes. “Fine. Do as you will. You always do,” she said, brushing aside a lock of dark hair shot through with white.  
  
Monmon finished her depressing work, and with a sigh headed back to her room. The door was open and a lamp was on. Drawing her wand, she edged her way in, wary of who the intruder might be.  
  
She knew who it was rummaging through her book shelves. And he wasn’t even trying to hide his presence here.  
  
“Abbé Guibourg,” Monmon said, inclining her head to him with the absolute minimum respect she could get away with without him complaining to her father. “And what precisely would you be doing in my quarters?”  
  
The pale man smiled, blue eyes crinkling. “Your father instructed me to ensure that you weren’t trying to hide anything from him. With how very important you are to the family, mmm, he just couldn’t stand to have your reputation ruined by any form of misconduct.” He raised a selection of letters. “And what would these be?”  
  
“Letters from friends,” Monmon said, trying not to shift guiltily or look away. Because she had no reason to look guilty. They were just letters from friends. Kirche was just a friend. Tabitha was… Kirche’s friend. Danny was just a friend, for all that he was a brat. And most certainly, in every way possible, Guiche was just a friend. Even if she would wish otherwise.  
  
“Oh? Then you won’t mind if I read them,” he said, stepping closer with his oily smile.  
  
“Feel free,” Monmon retorted.  
  
“Then I will.”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
“Fine!” He pocketed the letters, crumpling the parchment. “I believe I have my educational reading materials for tonight.”  
  
“Then please leave. I intend to get changed out of my formal wear, so it is not creased,” she said wearily. She saw him out the door, made sure he was far away, and the locked the door and dragged the draft excluder in front of it.  
  
Dang. He’d found another one of her ablative caches of forged letters. Some day he might find something actually valuable to her.  
  
Not Guiche’s letters, though. She’d burned them after reading. It was the only safe way, given what they implied. How she felt. It didn’t matter if he found the letters from the friends who were really just friends. Montmorency was used to that kind of violation. But she had cried as she watched the parchment blacken and char, taking with it a future she wished she could have had.  
  
“I hate him,” Montmorency whispered to herself. “I hate him I hate him I hate him so _very_ much.”

* * *

But of course, that wasn’t the end of her familial duties. There were certain things that the Montmorencys had to do, even if they were reduced to penury and their lands were a fraction of what they once were. That was the reason that the family formed up along with the elderly priest who oversaw the chapel by the shore, and headed down to Lake Ragdorian.  
  
Monmon would like to say that her hatred for Abbé Guibourg and how he wasn’t out here in the cold kept her warm on the way down there, but unfortunately mere hatred wasn’t enough to defeat the climate. Her only exposed flesh was a thin line between her hood and the scarfs covering her mouth and despite that she was fairly sure her eyeballs were freezing over.  
  
It was said that once her ancestors had dwelled in the ancient ruins by the lake, which had once been a city greater than Versailles and Bruxelles combined. Honestly, she didn’t give that very much credit. If every city that claimed to be greater than all modern cities had actually been so, at least one of them should have survived. But the foundations of the stone towers of the ruins were of such a scale that once they must have been a thing to look upon. And from this ancient city had passed down a legacy and a heritage to her and her family.  
  
All the Montmoreny family were water mages, and all of them were a little more aware of the spirits that hid themselves in the world than most people were. Even most mages couldn’t see them unless they deliberately revealed themselves. Usually, Monmon wished she couldn’t. She didn’t want to have this uncanny power, and she didn’t want the spirits paying more attention to her than they did to other people. Her life was complicated enough as it was.  
  
Unfortunately, the spirits didn’t care. The water spirits of Ragdorian Lake had to be placated at the right times of year, or else they’d raise the waters of the lake and flood the entire district. And her kin in Gallia had been slain by a mad queen long ago, so it was entirely up to the Montmorency family now.  
  
When you put it like that, she thought darkly to distract herself from the feeling of her tear ducts solidifying, spirits were right bastards.  
  
“… and so at the closing of the year, we offer to you these gifts,” droned the old priest, speaking words he’d spoken for decades.  
  
One by one, the family members went to throw their offerings into the lake. Sometimes she might see a watery hand drag them down, but more often lately they’d just sink. Her younger sister thought that the misfortune of the family was because the spirits were angry. Monmon wished she could be that optimistic. If it was just the spirits, there’d be a nice, doable _target_ to focus on for making things better.  
  
Her father made his offerings. Then she, as heir, stepped onto the pier to cast her gift into the water.  
  
A plume of water erupted before her, blasting a freezing mist up from Lake Ragdorian. She screamed a little bit from the biting cold. From the depths up rose a water spirit; a creature of water. Initially it was a formless, vague humanoid but as it rose it took on her own appearance. One hand was outreached.  
  
Monmon froze, unsure of what to do.  
  
Unfortunately it turned out that rather than offering a choice, the spirit was making a demand. With a firm yank, the water spirit pulled her into the lake water. Then followed freezing cold and the screaming of her lungs for air.

* * *

Monmon surfaced, gasping for breath. Icy water dribbled down from her sodden blond hair, completely ruining her ringlets. Perhaps that was why it took a moment to realise that the air here was warm. She looked up at the cavern roof encrusted with blue-glowing crystals, and…  
  
… there was air down here. There shouldn’t be air down here. She was underwater. Even through the cold shock, she had felt herself descend, and descend, and descend. She had to be at the bottom of the lake, if not under it. And yet there was air down there and the water wasn’t chilling her to the very bone.  
  
The spirit pulled her out of the water, then pulled the water out of her mouth and clothes. Monmon just coughed and spluttered. It didn’t fix her hair, though. She wasn’t surprised. Her hair didn’t naturally take her customary shape, and tended to look more like someone had tried to drown her if she didn’t sleep with her hair in curlers.  
  
“Bleargh,” she said, working her bone-dry mouth and wetting it again. A squirming in her pocket alerted her to her distressed familiar, and she freed him, dropping him in a puddle where he could wet his skin again.  
  
“Come,” said the spirit that wore her face, leaning over her. “They are waiting.”  
  
“Who are waiting?” Monmon croaked, licking her lips.  
  
“They are.”  
  
The spirit led her down twisting corridors, down to a pool that lay in this strange space below the earth. Perhaps it had once been the temple of some long forgotten god, because there were arches in the ceiling and the faceless remnants of old statues. The white stone here looked a bit like some of the oldest ruins that Monmon had seen all over Tristain and beyond in her time heroing. Water dripped from the roof, echoing in the hush.  
  
There were three water spirits waiting for her, sitting on the still pool. They sat around a crystal that glowed a faint blue. It had once been flawless and perfect, but a spider-like crack propagated down one side.  
  
Monmon bowed her head, and said nothing. Nothing should be offered to the spirits unless it was agreed; no names should be asked.  
  
One spoke. His beard and shaggy mane of hair was white sea-foam; his blue-green body was rotund and heavy. “I speak for the water of the seas,” he said.  
  
“I speak for the living water of the rivers and lakes,” said the next water-spirit. She was tall and spindly; long limbs stretched out with too many joints. The water in her body was silty in her legs but clearer in the head.  
  
“And I am the water in air, the falling rain,” said the last. This water-spirit took the form of a small girl-child with rounded features, and she was hard to see in the gloom. She was nearly entirely transparent; pure liquid whose surface rippled with unseen impacts.  
  
“We wish to speak to you,” said Father Ocean. “Once there was a marriage and a child was born. You are our distant kin, for all that you are wrapped in markay flesh.”  
  
“The elves will not listen to us,” said Mother River. “Their lords are deaf to the cries of water. From great stone structures comes forth terrible things that pollute their rivers. From their fields wash food for plants that chokes river mouths with algal blooms. They do not care.”  
  
“Your spirit is scarred by the marks born by those who have fought the Abyss, but you remain pure of its influence. You stand against demonkind. We are desperate,” said the Rain Child. “The pressure of the Abyss builds up under the world, and the heat rises. Something is swelling up the place of the demons. It grows hotter. The fires rise. Soon they shall break through.”  
  
Montmorency blinked. “What is… the world is in great danger?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Why haven’t you told someone?”  
  
“We are telling someone.”  
  
“How soon?” Monmon asked, mind focussing on that concern as she tried not to think about the fact that the water spirits claimed her as their own kin. “How much time do these lands have?”  
  
“We do not understand time as you do,” said the Rain Child. “Such things are for the mortals, and you pretend to be mortal.”  
  
“We do not even know,” said the spirit of the lake.  
  
“Quiet,” snapped Mother River. “This is not your place to speak, especially since you lost the Ring of Andvari.”  
  
“I didn’t lose it! It was stolen! I can’t believe you’d say it’s my fau—”  
  
The Rain-Child clasped her hands together. “It does not matter if it is to happen a year from now or a century. It must be stopped regardless,” she said firmly. “Evil will destroy the world. Evil will corrupt the world. Evil will make things as they should not be. This cannot be permitted.”  
  
Monmon decided to pay attention to the Rain-Child rather than the degenerating argument between the lake spirit and Mother River. It felt much more gratifying to be tasked with such a mighty endeavour by three wise spirits of the waters, as opposed to bickering children. Even if the one she was listening to was the one who appeared as a child. “What might be causing this?” she asked. “Do you have any knowledge of what the demons are planning?”  
  
“The demons do not seem to know what is causing it,” said Father Sea. “They know that their realm is becoming more polluted and heating up, but they are not sure whether the change in the climes of the Abyss is their fault or not.”  
  
“Some of them believe it may be the result of unnatural cycles,” said the Rain-Child, raising her voice over the squabbling Mother River and the lake spirit. “The Four Evils have appeared once again. The Heirs to Darkness walk the land, and they unknowingly seek to make the Four into the Prime Evil. Perhaps the day approaches when the Throne of the Abyss shall be filled again.”  
  
“The King of the Abyss will break out of his prison?” Monmon breathed.  
  
“Perhaps,” said Father Sea, “or perhaps a new tyrant shall rise whose eyes are turned upwards. It matters not. It must be stopped.”  
  
“You shall stop it,” said the Rain-Child.  
  
“Me? But I—”  
  
“You misunderstand,” the piping voice contradicted her. “I speak of mortal-kind. It must be done, but we cannot say – or know – who can do it. You are our messenger to the mortals because you are our kin, but your flesh lets you act without the constraints of our nature.”  
  
Letting her head sink into her hands, Monmon tried not to sigh audibly. “So, what you’re saying is that somehow, at some time, the Abyss will break into reality in some way. And I need to find a way to stop this.”  
  
The water spirits exchanged a look between each other. “That is an accurate summary,” said Mother River haughtily.  
  
Opening her mouth to make a caustic remark about unhelpful spirits, Monmon changed her mind. One was not meant to be sarcastic to spirits, not least because they could tear all the water out of your body if they were offended. “I understand,” she said, bowing her head. “I shall do this for you, and in return…” she paused, aching at the knowledge of the boon she really wanted from them but compelled to ask for something else, “you will tell me if you find any more details about this plan of the Abyss.”  
  
“This is a fair trade,” said Father Sea approvingly. “So it shall be.”  
  
No, it wasn’t fair at all, Monmon thought to herself. It wasn’t fair that they were asking this of her – but she didn’t have a choice if they were telling the truth. Damn them, they were right. Such a plan of the Abyss had to be stopped.  
  
“And,” sullenly added the water spirit who had pulled Monmon down here, “it was not my fault the Ring of Andvari was stolen. I just want to make this clear. It was all the fault of a trickster thief. I’m not to blame at all. No matter what anyone else says.”  
  
“Take her back to her kind,” ordered the Rain-Child sharply.  
  
The trip up to the surface was no kinder on her than the voyage down, and she was unceremoniously dumped on the lakeside in the freezing cold.  
  
She was rushed to bed to recover, and while she stared up at the ceiling she wondered what on earth she was going to tell her family. Monmon wished that she could simply say that she had been given an epic quest by the spirits and thus simply had no time for marriage, but she doubted she’d be believed. Between her drunkard of a father, her evil stepmother, and the vile presence of the abbé they’d just believe she was making it up to avoid hated matrimony.  
  
No, Monmon decided, she couldn’t tell her family. They might confine her to stop her running away. So she’d just need to make best use of the free time she had.

* * *

The lights were still on in the little house attached to the estate that was given to the abbé. It was much warmer in there than the main estate, and all the furnishings were in much better condition. If one were to pay very close attention to certain aspects of the walls and floorboards, any number of cunningly hidden caches of coins might be found.  
  
Abbé Étienne Guibourg lit his pipe, and inhaled, contemplating things. All things considered, he wished the girl hadn’t survived. When word had come that the spirits had dragged Montmorency into the lake, he had been interested – but then she had been returned a quarter of an hour later, mostly intact.  
  
What had they done to her down there, and could he use it to his advantage? Perhaps. Some rumours might be useful; an implication of foul deeds here, a muttering of lost purity there. But then again, that might just put him in danger. His plans were reliant on things not being looked at too closely, and who knew what the family might do if they decided to try to disprove whatever whispers he set up.  
  
And his plans were on… tentative territory as they stood. He had no idea what had truly happened in Amstelredamme, but Françoise-Athenais was gone. His ally on the Council was gone. The foolish woman must have trusted someone else to carry out Black Rites for her, and had wound up possessed. Such a shame. He had been lucky beyond belief when she had achieved that high rank, and perhaps he had grown too used to it.  
  
“What do you think, Mysterion?” Étienne asked his familiar, idly running his fingers through the black fur of the hound. The dog only whuffled and sank into his gestures. “Yes, perhaps it is best to not unduly worry. Since she appears to have been dragged to the Abyss, there’s very little risk that they’ll find out my involvement.”  
  
But should he risk reminding Magdalene van Delft about their mutual… interest in demonology? Or would there be too much of a risk that she’d just have him killed?  
  
Étienne ran his hands through his blonde hair. He just needed to stay focussed. No distractions.  
  
First an unhappy marriage. Then a death. Then the end of the Montmorency family. The culmination of his plans.  
  
No. Call it for what it was. Call it _revenge_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that said and done, Overlady is formally going on hiatus. Over the past year, I've found myself spread thin between more and more projects - some of them public, some of them happening behind the scenes. As it stands, the separation between chapters has really been getting unacceptable.
> 
> So I've been progressing my various things to natural "end of arc" points, and putting them on hiatus so I can clear the table. Trust me when I say that Overlady is not being abandoned - it's been on one long hiatus before when I nearly burned out after keeping up weekly updates for months, and it resumed then.
> 
> It is my hope that when it resumes, I'll have cleared out enough of the other things that I'm working on that we can push solidly through the next few arcs, possibly all the way to the conclusion. And to that end, I'll also have built up a buffer before it resumes, so at the very least you'll have a few weeks of consistent releases before it winds back up at the usual "it's done when it's done" standard.
> 
> So thank you all, and await the return of:
> 
> The Dark and Evil Sinister Deeds of the Malevolent Supreme Lady of Darkness and Evil under whose Malignant Grasp all of Halkeginia was Darkly and Evilly Crushed by Darkness and Evil  
> or,  
> Overlady


End file.
